Ionospheric effects in SAR interferometry: An analysis and comparison of methods for their estimation

For spaceborne SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) systems, the dispersive effects of the ionosphere on the propagation of the SAR signal can be a significant source of phase error. While at X-band frequencies the effects are small, current and future P-, Land C-band systems would benefit from ionospheric compensation to avoid errors in topographic retrieval. In this paper the focus is on the effects of the ionosphere on repeat-pass SAR interferometry from Pthrough X-bands and methods for their estimation which are demonstrated on L-band ALOS-PALSAR acquisitions.