Microwave radiometer response to snow in the 6.8 to 94 GHz range for various land-cover categories

We used our airborne HUTRAD microwave radiometer system (Helsinki University of Technology Radiometer) to collect data on microwave emission from snow-covered terrain, including a variety of forest types and land-use categories in the Tuusula test site, southern Finland, and the Kuusamo test site, northern Finland. The data include brightness temperatures at 6.8, 10.65, 18.7, 23.8, 36.5, and 94 GHz for vertical and horizontal polarization, using a look angle of 50/spl deg/ off-nadir. In addition to snow ground truth data, the results were compared with land-cover, especially forest information in order to determine the effect of forests on the brightness temperature of snow-covered terrain.