New approach for snow water equivalent (SWE) estimation using repeat pass interferometric SAR

Retrieval of Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) using conventional InSAR processing is difficult due to InSAR phase wrap. The problem appears when the snow layer variation exceeds some tens of cm because of the high InSAR phase sensitivity to snow depth. This paper describes the concept of applying delta-K technique on InSAR data for deriving SWE of dry snow. The technique solves the conventional problem of InSAR phase wrap from pixel to pixel even for the most extreme cases. Experimental results show that the delta-K InSAR phase can be estimated to a few degrees accuracy for an area of 10 × 10 km² corresponding to roughly SWE of 100 mm.