Investigations on Precipitation Effects in space-borne SAR imaging

Abstract

As the operating frequencies of SAR-systems are increasing, the visible distortions due to hydrometeors in SAR-images are becoming more and more frequent. This holds especially for the case of convective rain events. During the previous year, the German space-borne satellite TerraSAR-X has delivered a series of measurements which were used to study precipitation effects in SAR-imaging. Based on this valuable data-sets and simultaneous 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 observed effects to systems operating with higher nominal frequency-bands, being taken under consideration for future SAR-systems.