Model-based Analysis of Temporal PolInSAR Coherence Regions for Snow Water Equivalent Estimation

Abstract:
The snow water equivalent change between two SAR measurements can be derived from their interferometric phase, but is limited because of phase wrapping. Further, the Co-polar Phase Difference (CPD) can be related to snow depth, which allows phase wrap estimation. However, changes in snow depth and snow anisotropy impact both the CPD and interferometric phase. Addressing these ambiguities, this study proposes to combine both methods into a Differential Polarimetric Interferometric SAR (PolInSAR) framework. Preliminary results indicate that the modelled coherence regions exhibit a higher sensitivity to snow changes than the CPD and show similar structures as measured data.