Snow water equivalent change mapping from slope-correlated synthetic aperture radar interferometry (InSAR) phase variations

Eppler, Jayson; Rabus, Bernhard; Morse, Peter

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-1497-2022

Articles | Volume 16, issue 4

The Cryosphere, 16, 1497–1521, 2022

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-1497-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

The Cryosphere, 16, 1497–1521, 2022

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-1497-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 16, issue 4

Research article

27 Apr 2022

Research article | 27 Apr 2022

Snow water equivalent change mapping from slope-correlated synthetic aperture radar interferometry (InSAR) phase variations

Jayson Eppler et al.

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-1497-2022-supplement

Data sets

Code and data for: Snow Water Equivalent Change Mapping from Slope Correlated InSAR Phase Variations. In The Cryosphere Discussions (1.0.1) Jayson Eppler https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6480208

Model code and software

Code and data for: Snow Water Equivalent Change Mapping from Slope Correlated InSAR Phase Variations. In The Cryosphere Discussions (1.0.1) Jayson Eppler https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6480208

Short summary

We introduce a new method for mapping changes in the snow water equivalent (SWE) of dry snow based on differences between time-repeated synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. It correlates phase differences with variations in the topographic slope which allows the method to work without any "reference" targets within the imaged area and without having to numerically unwrap the spatial phase maps. This overcomes the key challenges faced in using SAR interferometry for SWE change mapping.