Estimation and correction of scintillation effects on spaceborne P-band SAR images

A correction method for distortions induced by ionospheric scintillation effects on P-band quad-pol synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data acquired in polar and high latitude regions is presented. For this the estimation of the Faraday rotation (FR) is converted to ionospheric phase and used for the correction of the scintillation. The correction is performed on partially focused SLC data in order to compensate the ionosphere-induced phase and the distortion of the time-Doppler history. The degree of defocusing depends on the altitude of the ionosphere. The performance of the new correction method is tested on P-band simulated data for various ionospheric scenarios.