Sensitivity of Polarimetric and Interferometric Phases to Ice Sheet Subsurface Density

Abstract

The subsurface density of ice sheets is a key uncertainty in mass balance estimations. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) measurements of polarimetric and interferometric phases contain information about the density, but were only considered separately. Polarimetric phases are related to the dielectric anisotropy of firn, but multiple inci-dence angles are required to solve for density and a quantitative sensitivity analysis is missing. Interferometric phases were used to retrieve densities in tower-based SAR tomography experiments, requiring large incidence angle variety and high resolution. This study conducts a combined sensitivity analysis of polarimetric and inter-ferometric SAR measurements towards a density retrieval.