GiRsnow: an open-source software for snow depth retrievals using GNSS interferometric reflectometry

Snow is an important water resource that plays a critical role in the global climate and hydrological cycle. Thus, Global Navigation Satellite System Interferometric Reflectometry (GNSS-IR) has emerged as a new remote sensing technology for monitoring snow depth. We developed the snow parameter proc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inGPS solutions Vol. 25; no. 2
Main Authors Zhang, Shuangcheng, Peng, Jilun, Zhang, Chenglong, Zhang, Jingjiang, Wang, Lixia, Wang, Tao, Liu, Qi
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.04.2021
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Atmospheric Sciences
Automotive Engineering
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Electrical Engineering
Freeware
Fresnel zones
Geophysics/Geodesy
Global climate
Global navigation satellite system
Global positioning systems
GPS
GPS Toolbox
Hydrologic cycle
Hydrology
Interferometry
Open source software
Quality control
Reflectometry
Remote monitoring
Remote sensing
Robustness
Satellite constellations
Signal to noise ratio
Snow
Snow depth
Space Exploration and Astronautics
Space Sciences (including Extraterrestrial Physics
Water depth
Water resources
GNSS-IR
Snow depth
Grid model
Quality control
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Summary:Snow is an important water resource that plays a critical role in the global climate and hydrological cycle. Thus, Global Navigation Satellite System Interferometric Reflectometry (GNSS-IR) has emerged as a new remote sensing technology for monitoring snow depth. We developed the snow parameter processing software GiRsnow, based on GNSS-IR tools and a MATLAB environment, to obtain robust and effective retrievals. That tool allows users to check the data quality, draw reflection point trajectory and Fresnel zone, retrieve snow depth using signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) observations or geometry-free linear carrier phase combination (termed L4) observations, and display the results based on the time and space domain. We conducted two experiments at the Plate Boundary Observation site RN86 and GPS Earth Observation Network (GEONET) site 020877 to validate the performance of the software. Our results demonstrate that GiRsnow can process multi-constellation and multi-frequency GNSS data and obtain robust and effective results through quality control and a grid model to account for topography effects.
ISSN:1080-5370
1521-1886
DOI:10.1007/s10291-021-01096-0