Dry snow analysis in alpine regions using RADARSAT-2 full polarimetry data. Comparison with in situ measurements

Author

Dedieu, J.-P. ; Besic, N. ; Vasile, G. ; Mathieu, J. ; Durand, Y. ; Gottardi, F.

Author_Institution

LTHE, Univ. Grenoble-Alpes, Grenoble, France

fYear

2014

fDate

13-18 July 2014

Firstpage

3658

Lastpage

3661

Abstract

In this paper we describe the benefits of RADARSAT-2 in the analysis of temporal changes in polarimetric parameters linked to the snow cover evolution during the winter season. The presented study took place over an instrumented area in the region of French Alps. The focus is set on the dry snow depth retrieval, using an original method based on principal component statistical analysis (PCA) of the polarimetric parameters values. The results obtained by this mean are compared with the network of simultaneous snow in situ measurements. The most thought-provoking result is the strong inverse correlation between the snow depth above the ice crust and the entropy, reflected through the very high coefficient of determination R² = 0.8439. In order to justify this observation, we propose an appropriate physical hypothesis.

Keywords

Earth crust; entropy; ice; principal component analysis; snow; Alpine region; French Alps region; PCA; RADARSAT-2 benefit; RADARSAT-2 full polarimetry data; appropriate physical hypothesis; dry snow analysis; dry snow depth retrieval; entropy; ice crust; polarimetric parameter temporal change analysis; polarimetric parameter value; principal component statistical analysis; simultaneous snow in situ measurement network; snow cover evolution; snow depth strong inverse correlation; very high determination coefficient; winter season; Backscatter; Entropy; Ice; Principal component analysis; Remote sensing; Scattering; Snow; dry snow; entropy; polarimetry;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), 2014 IEEE International

Conference_Location

Quebec City, QC

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IGARSS.2014.6947276

Filename

6947276