General Comments The paper reports on retrieval of melt pond fraction on first-year ice (FYI) using SAR using Radarsat-2 (RS-2) quad-polarisation images. The study finds that the two co-polarized (HH and VV) channels, when used to calculate the polarization ratio VV/HH, can indicate the melt pond fraction during the middle part of the melt season. The authors suggest this may offer a means of providing wide-scale melt pond fraction mapping for process studies, but there are a couple of issues

more »

... at limit its practicality: Specific comments Abstract P846/L14 -The abstract says the algorithm was developed in 4 images, not 5. P846/L17 -Expand root-mean-square error (RMSE) here rather than leaving it until section 3.3 (P858/L18).