Azimuth Variation in Microwave Scatterometer and Radiometer Data Over Antarctica

While designed for ocean observation, scatterometer and radiometer data have proven very useful in a variety of cryosphere studies. Over large regions of Antarctica, ice sheet and bedrock topography and the snow deposition, drift, and erosional environment combine to produce roughness on various sca...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: David Long Senior, David G. Long, Senior Member, Ieee Mark, Drinkwater Member Ieee
Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
Format: Text
Language:English
Published:
Subjects:
radiometer
scatterometer
ice sheet
azimuthal anisotropy
Sastrugi
Antarc*
Antarctica
Ice Sheet
Online Access:http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.30.5234
http://polar.jpl.nasa.gov/Publications/IEEENSCATAZ11.pdf
Description
Summary:While designed for ocean observation, scatterometer and radiometer data have proven very useful in a variety of cryosphere studies. Over large regions of Antarctica, ice sheet and bedrock topography and the snow deposition, drift, and erosional environment combine to produce roughness on various scales. Roughness ranges from broad, basin scale ice-sheet topography at 100 km wavelengths, to large spatially coherent dune fields at 10 km wavelengths, to erosional features on the meter scale known as sastrugi. These roughness scales influence the microwave backscattering and emission properties of the surface, combining to introduce azimuth-angle dependencies in the satellite observation data. In this paper we explore the use of NSCAT data, ERS AMI scatterometer mode data, and SSM/I data to study surface roughness effects in Antarctica. All three sensors provide strong evidence of azimuth modulation which is correlated with the surface slope environment and resulting katabatic wind flow re.

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