Retrieving dry snow density with SIR-C polarimetric SAR data

For a given incidence angle at the snow surface, a greater snow density causes a greater change in the incidence angle at the snow-ground interface; for a given snow density, however, a larger incidence angle at the snow surface results in a greater change in the refractive angle in the snow layer, by comparing the difference of incidence angle at the snow-ground interface and the air-snow interface with different snow density. Algorithm for estimating dry snow density used backscattering measurements with polarimetric SAR at L-band frequency is developed based on simulation of the surface backscattering componentsσ ^g _hh andσ ^g _vv using the IEM model and regression analysis. The comparison of the estimated snow density from SAR L-band images with that from field measurements during the SIR-C/X-SAR overpass shows root means square error of 0.050 g/cm³. It shows that this algorithm can be accurately used to estimate dry snow density distribution.