Observations of Land Surface Passive Polarimetry with WindSat

Author

Narvekar, Parag S. ; Jackson, Thomas J. ; Bindlish, Rajat ; Li, Li

Author_Institution

Hydrology & Remote Sensing Lab., USDA, MD

fYear

0

fDate

0-0 0

Firstpage

160

Lastpage

164

Abstract

WindSat provides an opportunity to explore what new information about the land surface can be obtained from passive polarimetric microwave measurements. Large and homogeneous regions were identified that represented unique features. These included forest, rangeland, desert and agriculture conditions. WindSat observations over land surfaces were found to be well calibrated and consistent with other passive microwave sensors. Initial results showed that land surfaces with aligned features (topography or row structured vegetation) produced systematic variations in the 3^rd and 4^th Stokes parameters. Further analyses will seek to isolate specific features that could be used in applications such as soil moisture retrieval

Keywords

geophysical equipment; polarimetry; radiometry; terrain mapping; topography (Earth); Stokes parameters; WindSat; agriculture conditions; desert; forest; land surface passive polarimetry; passive microwave sensors; rangeland; row structured vegetation; topography; Brightness temperature; Land surface; Ocean temperature; Polarimetry; Polarization; Rough surfaces; Sea surface; Stokes parameters; Surface roughness; Surface topography;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

IEEE MicroRad, 2006

Conference_Location

SanJuan

Print_ISBN

0-7803-9417-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MICRAD.2006.1677081

Filename

1677081