TropiSCAT: A Ground Based Polarimetric Scatterometer Experiment in Tropical Forests

This paper describes a ground-based scatterometer experiment designed to support the definition of the future spaceborne BIOMASS mission for global forest biomass estimation. The scatterometer is installed on a 55 m tower in the tropical rain forest in French Guiana, South America. The objective is the measurement of temporal coherence in all polarizations over a period of one year at different time scales. This paper presents a description of the experiment set up, and shows the first measurements which demonstrate the experiment feasibility. The first results show the coherences at P-band and L-band, and tomographic measurements at different polarizations. The coherence follows daily cycles and retrieves high values at the same hour. These preliminary results have validated the TROPISCAT instrument concept and have led to the final installation with long term automatic polarimetric and tomographic measurements.