Precipitation induced signatures in SAR images

Active microwave SAR imaging of the Earth´s surface is commonly considered to be of all weather capability. However, as the operating frequencies of SAR-systems are increasing, visible image distortions due to heavy precipitation in SAR-images are present. This holds especially for the case of convective rain events imaged at X-band frequencies and beyond. The German spaceborne satellite TerraSAR-X delivered several measurements, which facilitate to study precipitation effects in SAR-images. Based on this SAR-images and simultaneously acquired weather radar measurements, a quantitative estimation of precipitation effects in SAR-images is presented. In a further step, a first attempt is made to extrapolate the effects observed in X-band SAR images to images acquired at higher nominal frequency bands.