Boreal forest transmissivity in the microwave domain using ground-based measurements

This letter proposes an estimation of microwave transmissivity within the Canadian boreal forest. The aim is to correct the forest effect in snow water equivalent estimation from Special Sensor Microwave Imager and Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer microwave measurements. The estimation was carried out using ground-based radiometric measurements, at 19 and 37 GHz, and for both polarizations. The results show that the transmissivity is correlated with the stem volume and is independent of the tree species. For high stem volumes (>100 m³/ha), the transmissivity is found to be 0.4 and 0.3 for 19 and 37 GHz, respectively.