January 15 1993

The SAR image has a dark feature in the image center and a bright appearance elsewhere. The bright areas are wind blown open water, whereas the dark area is young smooth ice or a dense concentration of pancake ice. By comparing the SSM/I images from January 14 and January 15, it is seen, that the ice is created during the 15'th. The wind at the island Jan Mayen on January 15 is 8m/s [NMI, 1993], which indicates, that formation of pancake ice is likely. In the SAR image, the ice has almost no texture except for a bright line along the northern ice edge, and a few very dark features in the ice. At the ice edge some bands of new ice are seen, and the whole ice area is expected to consist of pancake ice with slightly varying ice concentrations.