Paper Info
Title
Polarimetric Airborne Radar Sounding as an Approach to Characterizing Subglacial Rothlisberger Channels
Abstract
Conventional airborne radar sounding techniques are well suited to the detection and characterization of flat-lying, specular subglacial water bodies. However, topographically positive, diffusively scattering Rothlisberger (R-) channels are more difficult to image, while also exerting substantial control on basal friction and ice dynamics. As subglacial R-channels share geometrical similarities with targets of interest in polarimetric ground-penetrating radar studies (i.e., cylindrical pipes), in this article, we investigate whether similar concepts can be adapted to detect and characterize R-channels. While closed-form analytical solutions exist for the scattering widths (SWs) of perfect electrically conducting and dielectric circular cylinders, the insight they provide for the polarimetric response of half-cylinder R-channels is limited. As such, a series of modeling experiments have been performed to characterize the SWs of half cylinders. Our results demonstrate that scattering from subglacial R-channels depends on numerous factors including the polarization and frequency of the incident radar wave, the size of the R-channel, and the relative orientation of the R-channel to a pair of orthogonally oriented, linearly polarized radar antennas. The results imply that patterns in the like-polarized echo powers across the signal bandwidth may be useful in inferring R-channel existence and possibly estimate R-channel size. However, as differences in SW are small and decrease with increasing misalignment between the acquisition system antennas and R-channel strike, achieving a high degree of radiometric resolution and stability should be a driving factor in polarimetric radar system design.
Year
DOI
Venue
2022
10.1109/JSTARS.2022.3174473
IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATIONS AND REMOTE SENSING
Keywords
DocType
Volume
Radar, Radar polarimetry, Radar cross-sections, Radar antennas, Dielectrics, Backscatter, Airborne radar, Airborne radar, cryosphere, radar cross-sections, radar polarimetry
Journal
15
ISSN
Citations 
PageRank 
1939-1404
0
0.34
References 
Authors
0
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Kirk M. Scanlan100.34
Dillon P. Buhl200.34
Donald D. Blankenship3197.17