Passive L-Band Remote Sensing Applications Over Cryospheric Regions ...

• Main Author: Naderpour, Reza
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: ETH Zurich 2019
• Subjects: Microwave remote sensing; Snowpack monitoring; Freeze–thaw; Permafrost; snow liquid water content; L-band radiometry; Climate Change; LS-MEMLS; geophysical noise; infoeu-repo/classification/ddc/550; Earth sciences; permafrost
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000345500; http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/345500

The Earth’s climate and its evolution are heavily influenced by the state of cryosphere snow cover and its subnivean ground through their determinative role in the exchange of water, heat, and greenhouse gases between land and the atmosphere. Previous research has shown that L-band radiometry can be used for the estimation of snow mass density rho_S and ground permittivity epsilon_G. In this thesis an unprecedented approach for the estimation of snow liquid water content (wetness) and the beginning of snow melt, using L-band radiometry and the L-band Specific Microwave Emission Model of Layered Snowpack (LS–MEMLS), is proposed. Two snow wetness retrieval data products are computed using tower-based radiometry over snow-covered natural ground and areas with a metal grid placed on the ground beneath the accumulating snow. It is experimentally demonstrated that the metal grid isolates snowpack’s own emission from the emission of the underlying ground. This allows considering the snow wetness retrievals derived ...