During westerly winds in winter the ice off the east coast can drift away from the coast, leaving a polynya of open water which refreezes. The ERS-1 SAR stripe of 19 April 1993 (see the location of the SAR image ) shows a refrozen polynya as a band of dark signature along the whole image. The refrozen polynya consist of young ice, 10 - 30 cm thick, with smooth surface which produces low SAR backscatter signals. The Novaya Zemlya coastal polynya with young ice is a preferred sailing route for icebreakers in east-west transit, if the ice conditions further south are difficult. An icebreaker track is observed in the image as a bright line through the dark young ice.
The image also shows open leads (bright lineate features) oriented in a southeasterly direction caused by a differential motion of the ice pack.

NERSC, Bergen, Norway

Keywords: ESA European Space Agency - Agence spatiale europeenne, observation de la terre, earth observation, satellite remote sensing, teledetection, geophysique, altimetrie, radar, chimique atmospherique, geophysics, altimetry, radar, atmospheric chemistry