CORRELATION BETWEEN ANTARCTIC DRY SNOW PROPERTIES AND BACKSCATTERING CHARACTERISTICS IN RADARSAT SAR IMAGERY

• Main Authors: N. Zahnen, F. Jung-rothenhäusler, H. Oerter, F. Wilhelms, H. Miller
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Amundsenisen; Antarctic; Dronning Maud Land; Alfred Wegener Institute; Antarc*; Antarctica; EPICA
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.552.3102; http://las.physik.uni-oldenburg.de/eProceedings/vol02_1/02_1_zahnen1.pdf

To further our understanding of global paleoclimate variations, the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) has started to drill two deep ice cores in Antarctica, with one located on the Amundsenisen plateau in Dronning Maud Land. In order to determine an optimal drilling location, extensive glaciological, geophysical and remote sensing projects were started in 1995. In support of these projects, this study attempts to understand the influences of physical snow pack parameters on the signal strength in RADARSAT SAR imagery. Twenty-six RADARSAT SAR standard beam images acquired in May 1997 are analysed. Process-ing steps include radiometric calibration, geometric correction and the generation of a mosaic that covers most of the study area. Field data were collected during the Dronning Maud Land traverse (1997/1998) of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), and include ac-cumulation rate, firn temperature, dielectric properties and the number of layers in snow pits. The field data are interpolated spatially to cover the entire study area. To determine the influence of the different snow pack parameters on the radar backscatter signal, a linear correlation is performed on the field-derived data on a point-to-point and on an area basis.