SIGNAL - SAR for Ice, Glacier aNd globAL Dynamics - Ocean and ATI Technical Note

Abstract

SIGNAL is an innovative earth exploration mission proposal with the main objective to estimate accurately and repeatedly topography and topographic changes associated with mass change or other dynamic effects on glaciers, ice caps and polar ice sheets. Elevation measurements are complemented with glacier velocity measurements, providing valuable additional information for a better understanding of the hydrology of glacierized basins and of the Arctic and Antarctic water cycle. SIGNAL is capable of monitoring all critical regions with a high spatial resolution and an adequate revisit time. The first part of this document collects the results of the performance analysis and the comparison with the requirements for the ocean current measurements in the context of the SIGNAL mission. The results are based on the theoretical analysis of the performance and on the results ob-tained with data from the TerraSAR-X DRA-ATI campaign in year 2010. The second part of this document deals with the across-track interferometric performance of the optimised concept for oceanography and along-track interferometry.