Snow mapping in alpine regions with synthetic aperture radar
- Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
- Univ. of Innsbruck (Austria). Inst. for Meteorology and Geophysics
For climatological and hydrological investigations, the areas covered by snow and glacial ice are important parameters. Active microwave sensors can discriminate snow from other surfaces in all weather conditions, and their spatial resolution is compatible with the topographic variation in alpine regions. Using data acquired with the NASA AIRSAR in the Oetztal Alps in 1989 and 1991, the authors examine the usage of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to map snow- and glacier-covered areas. By comparing polarimetric SAR data to images from the Landsat Thematic Mapper obtained under clear conditions one week after the SAR flight, they find that SAR data at 5.3 GHz (C-band) can discriminate between areas covered by snow from those that are ice-free. However, they are less suited to discrimination of glacier ice from snow and rock. The overall pixel-by-pixel accuracies--74% from VV polarization alone with topographic information, 76% from polarimetric SAR without any topographic information, and 79% from polarimetric SAR with topographic information--are high enough to justify the use of SAR as the data source in areas that are too cloud-covered to obtain data from the Thematic Mapper. This is especially true for snow discrimination, where accuracies exceed 80%, because mapping of a transient snow cover during a cloudy melt season is often difficult with an optical sensor. The AIRSAR survey was carried out in summer during a heavy rainstorm, when the snow surfaces were unusually rough.
- OSTI ID:
- 7010856
- Journal Information:
- IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers); (United States), Vol. 32:1; ISSN 0196-2892
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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