Multi-Sensor Ice Analysis Data: Analysis for Belgica Bank, North East Greenland 2019-20

The intention is that this dataset can be used for machine learning and deep neural network training/validation, and it distinguishes sea ice concentration, type and form derived from manual analysis of a combination of different satellite sensors including ALOS-2, Sentinel-1, COSMO-SkyMed, Sentinel-2, and ICESAT-2. The region chosen for the analysis was the Belgica Bank area offshore of North East Greenland, as this is an area which experiences a wide variety of sea ice, and iceberg, conditions throughout the year. The dataset consists of two parts: 11 days of individual sea ice interpretations, one for each month in the period from April 2019 to March 2020, with the exception of October 2019, and iceberg surveys derived from Sentinel-2 for spring in 2019 and 2020. The dataset includes a user guide issued by MET Norway as report 10/2022 (see https://www.met.no/publikasjoner/met-report) in which the first part describes the data sources, nomenclature, file formats and data in the analysis. A second part of the report compares synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data from both L-band ALOS-2 and C-band Sentinel-1 satellites, and identifies the visible synergies and anomalies. The results confirm that there are variations in backscatter signatures between ALOS-2 and Sentinel-1 data when comparing them for different sea ice situations and conditions. ALOS-2 data in many cases is proven to be a reliable and beneficial source of data when it comes to identifying icebergs, ridges, determining sea ice type, and also distinguishing ice and water compared to standalone Sentinel-1 data.