Topography and Displacement of Polar Glaciers from Multi-Temporal SAR Interferograms: Potentials and Error Analysis

Abstract

This paper describes a new technique to simultaneously estimate topography and motion of polar glaciers from multi-temporal SAR interferograms. The approach is based on a combination of several SAR interferograms in a least-squares adjustment using the Gauss- Markov model. For connecting the multi-temporal data sets, a spatio-temporal model is proposed that describes the properties of the surface and its temporal evolution. Rigorous mathematical modeling of functional and stochastic relations allows for a systematic description of the processing chain. It also is an optimal tool to parameterize the statistics of every individual processing step, and the propagation of errors into the _nal results. Within the paper theoretical standard deviations of the unknowns are calculated depending on the con_guration of the data sets. The in_uence of gross errors in the observations and the effect of non-modeled error sources on the unknowns are estimated. A validation of the approach based on real data concludes the paper.