Measuring Seasonal Permafrost Deformation with Differential Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar

• Main Author: Carina Butterworth
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2008
• Subjects: permafrost
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.569.4418; http://www.ucalgary.ca/engo_webdocs/MT/08.20269.CButterworth.pdf

iii Permafrost has been shown as a potential indicator of climate change. Because of the vast area permafrost covers and the remoteness of these areas, a cost effective, remote system is required to monitor small annual changes. Differential Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (DInSAR) has been proposed as a possible tool to monitor small height changes of the surface of the permafrost active layer. Four sets of DInSAR images were processed using three-pass interferometric methods and were factorized into the possible decorrelation components. These components include incidence angles, Doppler centroid differences, ionospheric activity, and coherence. The resulting displacement maps were compared structurally to conventionally surveyed ground truth data and the magnitude was compared with results of a permafrost heave model. One of the four sets of data was found to correspond to the ground truth data and the permafrost heave model. This data set had a high signal to noise ratio (SNR) and low Doppler centroid difference at an incidence angle of 38o. The other sets of data failed to create a reliable differential interferogram. The author concluded that DInSAR shows strong potential as a tool to map permafrost displacement, but further research is required. iv