Spatial Microwave Brightness Temperature Variations of Boreal Forests under Dry Snow Cover Conditions

Author

Lemmetyinen, Juha ; Pulliainen, Jouni ; Kärnä, Juha-Petri ; Tauriainen, Simo ; Pihlflyckt, Jörgen ; Hallikainen, Martti

Author_Institution

Lab. of Space Technol., Helsinki Univ. of Technol., Espoo

fYear

2006

fDate

2006

Firstpage

142

Lastpage

147

Abstract

The spatial variability of microwave brightness temperature of boreal forests under cold mid-winter conditions is investigated using an experimental data set collected with the airborne Helsinki University of Technology Radiometer (HUTRAD) system. SWE (snow water equivalent) estimation is used as a medium to compare airborne observations to ground reference. The data set covers a transect of about 800 km from southern to northern Finland at a spatial resolution of 100 m. Hence, the data enables the analysis of mixed pixel effects evident in coarse resolution satellite data. Additionally, the data are used to study the effect of varying land cover and forest characteristics on microwave brightness temperature. Results indicate strong effect of land cover and vegetation type to airborne microwave observations and the derived estimations of SWE

Keywords

geophysical techniques; land surface temperature; radiometry; remote sensing; Helsinki University of Technology Radiometer; airborne HUTRAD system; airborne microwave observations; boreal forests; coarse resolution satellite data; cold midwinter conditions; dry snow cover; land cover effect; mixed pixel effects; snow water equivalent estimation; spatial microwave brightness temperature variations; vegetation effect; Brightness temperature; Calibration; Frequency; Information retrieval; Loaded antennas; Microwave radiometry; Microwave technology; Polarization; Snow; Spatial resolution;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

IEEE MicroRad, 2006

Conference_Location

SanJuan

Print_ISBN

0-7803-9417-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MICRAD.2006.1677078

Filename

1677078