Airborne Experiment on Insar Snow Mass Retrieval in Alpine Environment

• Published in: IGARSS 2022 - 2022 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium pp. 4549 - 4552
• Main Authors: Nagler, Thomas, Rott, Helmut, Scheiblauer, Stefan, Libert, Ludivine, Molg, Nico, Horn, Ralf, Fischer, Jens, Keller, Martin, Moreira, Alberto, Kubanek, Julia
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 17.07.2022
• Subjects: airborne SAR; C-band; Coherence; field campaign; interferometry; Orbits; Phase measurement; Radar interferometry; Snow; snow water equivalent; Synthetic aperture radar
• ISSN: 2153-7003
• DOI: 10.1109/IGARSS46834.2022.9883809

In March 2021 a field campaign was conducted in the Austrian Alps exploring the application potential and performance of snow mass (snow water equivalent, SWE) retrievals by means of repeat-pass radar interferometry (RP-InSAR). Multiple repeat-pass acquisitions were obtained with an airborne polarimetric C-band and L-band SAR, covering days without snowfall, as well as two snowfall events of different intensity. SWE maps, deduced from the observed change of the RP-InSAR phase delay in the snowpack, show good agreement with field measurements. Whereas L-band data are well applicable for SWE mapping of both snowfall events, the 2 π phase ambiguity and low coherence prevent the use of C-band data for the snowfall event of high intensity. The analysis of the campaign data is going on, addressing among other topics the application of RP-InSAR for SWE monitoring within the planned L-band SAR mission ROSE-L of the European Copernicus program and by means of geostationary C-band SAR as proposed for the Hydroterra mission.