Pol-InSAR observations from an Alpine glacier in the cold infiltration zone at L- and P-band

In the frame of the Swiss Alpine Airborne SAR Experiment 2003 (SASARE), multitemporal/multibaseline polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry (Pol-InSAR) datasets were acquired with the German Experimental SAR (E-SAR) platform at L- and P-band in the region of the Aletsch glacier in Switzerland. For SASARE, several sub-test-sites had been selected below and significantly above the equilibrium line. We provide results from the analysis of the multibaseline Pol-InSAR L- and P-band measurements of the polarization-dependent complex interferometric coherence of an Alpine glacier in the cold infiltration zone. Interferometric volume decorrelation is demonstrated as a function of polarization. Conventional polarimetric decomposition techniques confirm the polarization-dependent backscattering properties of the analyzed snow and ice surfaces.