Retrieving snow water equivalence on C- and L-band SAR data for dry snow

The airborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data were acquired by EMISAR (Cand L-band) of Technical University of Denmark in Northern Finland during EMAC´95 (European Multisensor Airborne Campaign-95). The multifrequency polarimetric SAR data have been analyzed on retrieving snow water equivalence. The authors have modeled the response of the backscattering coefficient to snow water equivalence. The correlation between the measured data and model are computed. The results indicate that at C-band (1) dry snow cover can be discriminated from a bare surface and short vegetation; (2) snow water equivalence may be estimated by using semi-empirical models when the snow is dry