Investigation of cryosphere processes in the boreal forest zone using ground-based SAR

Ground-based remote sensing is useful for investigating the electromagnetic signatures of natural targets in relatively controlled conditions and at high temporal resolution. Ground-based Synthetic Aperture Radiometry (GB-SAR) can be used to study e.g. the impact of weather phenomena on conservation of radar coherence, a critical factor when using repeat-pass interferometric SAR (InSAR) for retrieval of geophysical parameters from air- or spaceborne platforms. We present a recently developed GB-SAR system and its use for studying wide-band radar signatures in the Northern Boreal Forest zone. Installed on a tower overlooking a coniferous forest stand, the collected time series spans at present three winter periods. The data has been used to assess the capability of InSAR methods to retrieve the mass of seasonal snow mass as well as the impact of environmental factors on conservation of radar coherence and attenuation of the microwave signal in the forest canopy.