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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-212</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Mapping Snow on Northern Winter Roads: A Dual-Frequency Polarimetric Radar Approach for Snow Characterization over Land, Lake and Sea ice</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Stroeve</surname>
<given-names>Julienne</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7316-8320</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Willatt</surname>
<given-names>Rosemary</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2512-562X</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Downie</surname>
<given-names>Madeleine</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Saha</surname>
<given-names>Monojit</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Nab</surname>
<given-names>Carmen</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2459-4777</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff6">
<sup>6</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Fallows</surname>
<given-names>Alicia</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0009-0007-7643-7515</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Soriot</surname>
<given-names>Clement</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Mallett</surname>
<given-names>Robbie</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1069-6529</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff7">
<sup>7</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Komarov</surname>
<given-names>Anton</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Nandan</surname>
<given-names>Vishnu</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff8">
<sup>8</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff9">
<sup>9</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Newman</surname>
<given-names>Thomas</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Yackel</surname>
<given-names>John</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff8">
<sup>8</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Centre for Earth Observation Science (CEOS), Department of Environment and Geography, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP), University of Bremen Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, London, UK</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff5">
<label>5</label>
<addr-line>University of Maryland, College Park and NASA Goddard, Greenbelt, MD, USA</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff6">
<label>6</label>
<addr-line>British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff7">
<label>7</label>
<addr-line>Earth Observation Group, Department of Physics and Technology, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff8">
<label>8</label>
<addr-line>Department of Geography, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff9">
<label>9</label>
<addr-line>Dept of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Amrita University, Bengaluru Campus, India</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>10</day>
<month>02</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>39</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Julienne Stroeve et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-212/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-212/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-212/egusphere-2026-212.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-212/egusphere-2026-212.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Winter roads are lifelines for remote northern communities. Built over land, lakes, rivers, and sea ice, these travel routes are increasingly vulnerable to warming temperatures and variable precipitation. To ensure safety and adapt to these changes, operators require high-resolution monitoring of snow depth across these diverse surfaces, as natural snow accumulation dictates ice growth rates, route viability and road stability. This study extends our polarimetric radar method, previously demonstrated on pack ice, to landfast sea ice, tundra, and frozen lakes. Results indicate consistency with earlier sea ice analyses and promising performance over frozen ground especially at Ku-band. To address the specific challenge of lake ice which includes strong returns from the ice/water interface, we present a new interface-detection technique that simultaneously retrieves snow depth and ice thickness. While current validation focuses on undisturbed snow, this approach could provide a path forward for characterizing the cryospheric environment in a way that can directly support the optimization of winter roads.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="39"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>Canada Excellence Research Chairs, Government of Canada</funding-source>
<award-id>50296</award-id>
</award-group>
<award-group id="gs2">
<funding-source>Horizon 2020</funding-source>
<award-id>101003826</award-id>
</award-group>
<award-group id="gs3">
<funding-source>Natural Environment Research Council</funding-source>
<award-id>NE/W004712/1</award-id>
<award-id>NE/S007229/1</award-id>
<award-id>NE/L002485/1</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
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<back>
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