Vertical profile reconstruction with Pol-InSAR data of a subpolar glacier

Abstract

The last decade has seen an increasing demand for accurate mapping and wide-coverage monitoring of glaciers and ice sheets in order to measure and predict their response to global climate change and their contribution to sea level rise. This in turn requires a more complete understanding of their properties including topography, accumulation rates and vertical profiles. One promising new technique for vertical profile reconstruction using polarimetric interferometric SAR (Pol-InSAR) data is Polarization Coherence Tomography (PCT) and for the first time, PCT is adapted here to a glacier scenario. The inversion algorithm to reconstruct vertical ice profiles is applied to both simulated data to assess its accuracy and sensitivity to input parameters, and to airborne Pol-InSAR data at L- and P-band and InSAR data at X-band collected using DLR's E-SAR system over the Austfonna ice cap in Svalbard, Norway.