Mobile X- to Ku-band Scatterometer in Support of the CoRe-H20 Mission

Information on snow coverage, structure, and liquid water content are important for many applications including avalanche warning, numerical weather prognosis (NWP), and snow pack water storage estimate. Active microwave remote sensing from space has an excellent potential to address these needs. However, the current generation of C-band SAR satellite systems are not well suited for snow related applications because of the small impact of the dry snow cover on the backscattering signal at 5.3 GHz. In order to be more sensitive to snow properties the envisaged ESA CoReH2O mission proposes a dual-frequency radar operating at 9 and 18 GHz (X- and Ku-band). In support of this mission, a ground based 9 to 18 GHz scatterometer is being developed to help to address the lack of simultaneous backscatter information of snow in this frequency range. We are also preparing a dedicated field campaign in the Swiss Alps to evaluate the performance of the system and acquire first data.