Automatic Measurement of Polynya Area by Anisotropic Filtering and Markov Random Fields

This paper presents a processing scheme for the automatic measurement of polynya area as observed by Cosmo-SkyMed (CSK) SAR-X images. The processing scheme, based on anisotropic filtering and on Markov Random Fields, was tested with two CSK SAR-X images captured during the polynya events occurred on September 10 and 26, 2009, at Terra Nova Bay, Antarctica. The good correspondence between the polynya extent, as obtained by the automatic method and clearly identified by visual inspection, confirms the soundness of the proposed processing scheme.