Disputas - Master of Science Laust Færch

Master of Science Laust Færch will Friday September 13th, 2024, at 12:15 hold his disputas for the PhD degree in Science. The title of his thesis is:

"Iceberg Detection for Arctic Operations - A Comparison of C- and L-band Wide-Swath SAR"

Summary:

The accurate detection and mapping of icebergs in the Arctic is important for the safety of maritime traffic and offshore infrastructure and for monitoring the health of marine-terminating glaciers. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images from satellites have proven to be a useful tool for Arctic monitoring, and C-band SAR images are currently used for operational iceberg monitoring in selected areas. However, current C-band data have been shown to offer only limited discrimination between icebergs and sea ice, impeding regular detection of icebergs in sea ice. Moreover, the methods currently used for iceberg detection in open water are poorly validated, and additional knowledge about their performance is needed. Future L-band missions are expected to increase detection accuracies for icebergs in sea ice and may, in addition, offer some advantages over C-band for detecting icebergs in open water. In this thesis, we are comparing the use of C- and L-band SAR images for the detection of icebergs in the Arctic. The first part of this thesis provides a background and introduction to Arctic icebergs, SAR, and the topic of iceberg detection using SAR. The second part of this thesis presents three research papers that have been produced as part of this Ph.D. project. The results of the research show that although L-band SAR serves as an excellent complement to C-band SAR for the detection of icebergs in open water, the true advantage of L-band over C-band is for the detection of icebergs in sea ice. This opens up a whole new area for monitoring, allowing for a more complete mapping of icebergs, and greatly improving the possibilities of Arctic-wide iceberg surveillance.

Evaluation committee:

• Professor Jørgen Dall, Technical University of Denmark; Department of National Space Institute; Microwaves and Remote Sensing research group. (1. opponent)  
• Researcher Arnt-Børre Salberg, Chief Research Scientist, Department for Image Analysis, Machine Learning and Earth Observation at Norwegian Computing Center, Oslo (2. opponent) 
• Post-Doc. Anne Braakmann-Folgmann, IFT, UiT, Tromsø (internal member and leader of the committee) 

Streaming site:

The disputas and trial lecture will be streamed from these sites:
Disputas (12:15 - 15:00)
Trial Lecture (10:15 - 11:00)

Thesis:

The thesis is available at Munin here.