Use of scatterometer data for global climate monitoring

Spaceborne scatterometers provide operationally measurements of the normalized radar cross section (NRCS) of the Earth´s surface. Methods have been developed to obtain information on the state of soil thawing in Siberia, on snow accumulation and melt on Greenland, as well as on state of vegetation. More than 7 years of ERS data were used to investigate the interannual variability of these parameters. The results show that scatterometers can provide important information for global climate monitoring and modelling despite their coarse spatial resolution