Adrienne Tivy (Science and Technology Branch, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Canada); John Mackay (Defence Research and Development Canada, Canada); Jose Lagunas-Morales (Defence Research and Development Canada, Canada); Mathieu Plante (Science and Technology Branch, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Canada); Pascal Matte (Science and Technology Branch, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Canada); Daniel Peters (Watershed Hydrology and Ecology Research Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Canada); Saeid Homayouni (Institut national de la recherche scientifique, Canada); Christine Gommenginger (National Oceanography Centre, UK); adrien Martin (Noveltis, France)

Monitoring sea ice is critical for advancing our understanding of climate change, maintaining polar ecosystems, and ensuring safe navigation in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. The SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) satellite mission aims to provide high-precision measurements of the Earth's water bodies, including oceans, lakes, and rivers. SWOT uses radar interferometry to accurately measure water surface elevation, which helps in understanding and monitoring changes in water levels, currents, and other hydrological dynamics on a global scale. Early findings from the SWOT mission indicate the prospect of new discoveries, extending beyond its main goals in oceanography and hydrology to encompass emerging applications such as cryosphere. This is particularly significant due to SWOT’s wide-swath radar altimeter, which offers unparalleled high-resolution two-dimensional maps of surface elevation. The iSWOT project (ice-SWOT: Unlocking Impacts and Opportunities) is one of the initiatives selected under the new International SWOT Science Team. Its primary objective is to explore innovative cryosphere applications by leveraging the high-resolution data products of the SWOT mission to enhance ice monitoring and characterization in the Canadian Arctic. The project also incorporates Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data from the Canadian RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) to support multi-sensor analysis and validation efforts.
This presentation provides first results and key insights from the analysis of SWOT data over sea ice in several experimental sites in Canada. We present results from field measurements in Nain over landfast sea ice. Field measurements include the ice temperature profile and thickness. We also include comparison analysis of sea ice types with RCM imagery over the Canadian Arctic and Beaufort Sea. We also provide preliminary results demonstrating the potential of SWOT for monitoring lake ice and detecting open water in Lake Athabasca, supported by comparisons with RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) and Sentinel-2 imagery. The expedition will take place in the Labrador Sea during the winter, and in the Parry Channel as well as the surrounding channels, sounds, and straits near Prince of Wales Island—including Barrow Strait—during the summer.