Combined GPR and TDR measurements for snow thickness and density estimation

The Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) is a technique capable to perform a fast monitoring of snowpack and glaciers, providing an estimation of some snow parameters like thickness, density and Snow Water Equivalent (SWE). The most important quantity to know to understand GPR data is the wave velocity in the snow, in order to transform the traveltime in depth. Independent measurements of wave velocity could be performed using the Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) or estimating the electrical permittivity from density measurements. Here an evaluation of the accuracy of TDR measurements to estimate the wave velocity is proposed and the results are corroborated by independent measurements of snow height and density.