Randall Scharien

Randall Scharien is an Associate Professor and graduate adviser in the Department of Geography at the University of Victoria. His expertise lies in remote sensing of the cryosphere, with a focus on Arctic sea ice. He has extensive field experience in polar regions and has contributed significantly to understanding sea ice dynamics and climate interactions.

Education

• PhD in Microwave Remote Sensing of Sea Ice, University of Calgary (2010)

Research Interests

Dr. Scharien's research broadly falls within remote sensing and the cryosphere, with emphasis on regional-scale applications. His work focuses on using microwave remote sensing, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), and radar polarimetry to study ice-covered oceans. He explores ocean-sea ice-climate interactions, snow and sea ice physical properties, and satellite microwave remote sensing. His current research involves applying multipolarization and fully polarimetric SAR to retrieve climatologically relevant parameters in the summer Arctic marine environment, particularly melt pond fraction and ice/open water fraction.

Publications

Dr. Scharien has published extensively on Arctic sea ice, remote sensing techniques, and cryosphere dynamics. His recent work includes studies on supraglacial lakes in Greenland, Larsen C Ice Shelf rift detection, and sea ice topography using SAR data. His publications span from 2005 to 2024, covering topics such as sea ice melt pond fraction, radar backscatter, and polarimetric SAR applications.

Labs and Teams

Dr. Scharien is associated with the ICE Remote Sensing Lab at the University of Victoria, which focuses on ice-climate-ecosystem interactions. The lab conducts research in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Greenland, and Antarctica using surface, airborne, and satellite remote sensing techniques.