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Interpretation of Satellite Radar Altimeter Waveforms using Ku-band Ultra-Wideband Radar Altimeter Data
PATEL, AQSA EJAZ
PATEL, AQSA EJAZ
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Abstract
Satellite radar altimeter measurements are important for monitoring rapidly changing polar regions. Satellite radar altimeters are being continuously used to measure surface-elevation of ice sheets and sea ice freeboard height. These measurements are used for generating mass balance estimates of ice sheets and thickness estimates of sea ice. However, due to the penetration of the altimeter signal into the snow, there is ambiguity between the surface tracking point and the actual surface location which produces errors in the surface elevation measurement. In order to address how the penetration of the signal affects the shape of the return waveform, it is important to study how sub-surface scattering and seasonal variations in the properties of snow pack affects the return waveform in correctly interpreting the satellite radar altimeter data. The fine-resolution data collected by the ultra-wide bandwidth Ku-band radar altimeter developed at the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS) can be used to interpret satellite altimeter waveforms. The Ku-band altimeter is designed to encompass the frequency band of satellite radar altimeters. The data from Ku-band altimeter can be used to simulate narrow bandwidth waveforms that can help us understand the effect of signal penetration and sub-surface scattering on low bandwidth satellite altimeter returns. For this work, we used the extensive dataset collected as a part of the Operation Ice Bridge (OIB) campaign for inter-comparisons of full and reduced bandwidth data products from Ku-band radar altimeter to investigate the effect of signal penetration and geophysical snow conditions on surface tracking using threshold tracking algorithms. We found that the performance of the leading edge tracker is consistent over all the snow zones of the Greenland ice sheet but has high standard deviation over sea ice. We also developed a physical model to simulate Ku-band full and reduced bandwidth waveforms over various ice types and use these modeled waveforms to fit the full and reduced bandwidth data products to extract surface track points. The waveform fitting method performs well given prior knowledge of the snow pack, including number of layers and thickness of layers obtained using Ku-band radar data.
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Date
2016-01-01
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University of Kansas
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This item contains archived web content.
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PATEL_ku_0099D_14917_DATA_1.pdf
Adobe PDF, 7.59 MB
- Embargoed until 2166-05-31
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Keywords
Electrical engineering, Remote sensing, Altemetry, Ku-band, Radar