Interferometric Penetration Into Dry Snow

and Sea Ice at Ka-band

Scott Hensley , Delwyn Moller , Ronald Kwok , Xiaoqing Wu , Shadi Oveisgharan and Thierry Michel
Jet

Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

4800 Oak Grove Dr, Pasadena, CA, 91109
Email: Scott.Hensley@jpl.nasa.gov
Remote Sensing Solutions, Barnstable, MA 02630
Email: dkmoller@remotesensingsolutions.com

AbstractIce sheet topography in Greenland and Antartica

and sea ice thickness are integral measurements to quantifying
and understanding the impact of climate to the Earths environment. Multiple sensors, lidars, radars and optical systems
have been used to make such measurements. To allow maximal
exibility in making such measurements and to utilize the benecial characteristics of each measurement type it is essential to
understand exactly where within the ice volume each sensor type
is making its measurement. This paper examines interferometric
radar penetration at Ka-band made by the GLISTIN instrument
in the dry snow regions of Greenland and over sea ice in the
Beaufort Sea in Alaska.

I.

I NTRODUCTION

Measuring ice surface topography over the major ice caps

of Greenland and Antarctica is crucial to quantifying and
understanding the effect of climate change on the Earths
environment. Laser altimeters, such as NASAs ICESat mission,
have been the primary means of making these critical measurements. Interferometric synthetic aperture radars are also capable of making accurate topographic maps. These systems can
have wide swaths and operate under most weather conditions
including dense cloud cover and hence could augment lidar
surveys when dense sampling is desired or inclement weather
reduces mapping coverage. However, radar signals penetrate
ice with the amount of penetration a function of wavelength
and ice conditions with longer wavelengths penetrating deeper.
Ka-band was chosen to minimize the amount of penetration
into the ice and experiments were conducted in Greenland
to quantify the amount of penetration into the surface cover.
Coordinated ights with the NASA Wallops Airborne Terrain
Mapper (ATM) lidar were conducted in addition to establishing
ground calibration sites at both NSFs Summit Station and
CIRES Swiss Camp. Comparison of the radar derived elevation
measurements with both in situ, lidar data and GPS ground
tracks are described in this paper. We compare GLISTIN, [1],
Ka-band interferometric radar measurements to lidar and GPS
elevation measurements and show the maximal penetration is
20 cm. Moreover, we compare the measurements with modelderived estimates of the amount of interferometric penetration
and provide sensitivity analysis of the amount of penetration to
various ice properties. Secondly, we look at sea ice thickness
measurements made in the Beaufort Sea, Alaska with data
collected in April of 2013.

c
978-1-4673-7297-8/15/$31.00 2015
IEEE

II.

GLISTIN R ADAR S YSTEM AND I NTERFEROMETRIC

M EASUREMENTS

The Glacier and Ice Surface Topography Interferometer

(GLISTIN not GLISTEN) was rst proposed as a spaceborne
digital beamforming Ka-band space-borne mission concept.
The airborne GLISTIN is a Ka-band single pass interferometer
(25 cm baseline length) own on the NASA Gulfstream III
aircraft designed to measure glacier and ice topography. Kaband (35 GHz or 8.5 mm wavelength) was chosen to minimize
penetration into the snow cover.
NASAs Earth Science Technology Ofce (ESTO) in 2004
initially funded technology development of a slotted waveguide
antenna beamformer along with mission studies. Later an
airborne demonstration for phenomenology and measurement
concept was funded in 2007 under NASA International Polar
Year activities with performance upgrades to the system made
in 2012.
GLISTIN has own a campaign to Greenland in May 2009
(IPY Conguration) where we conducted measurements on
Jakobshavn Glacier and in the interior at Summit Station and
to the Beaufort Sea, Alaska in April of 2013 (GLISTIN-A
Conguration). Figure 1 shows the G-III platform and the pod
housing GLISTIN instrument and Table I provides key instrument parameters for the IPY and GLISTIN-A congurations.

Fig. 1. GLISTIN instrument is housed in pod mounted to the belly of the

NASA/G-III aircraft.

TABLE I.

GLISTIN O PERATING PARAMETERS

Parameter
Peak Transmit Power
Receive Losses
Baseline Congurations
Elevation Precision (3 m Posting)
Flight Altitude
Look Angle Range
Swath Width

809

IPY
40 W (TWTA)
5 dB
SAT

GLISTIN-A
80 W (SSPA)
2 dB
Ping-Pong/SAT

7 km
10 -45
6 km

12 km
10 -50
11 km

A. Radar Interferometry for Topography

Measuring topography from radar imagery uses a technique
called radar interferometry that combines information from
two radar images [2]. The GLISTIN instrument uses two
antennas separated by about 25 cm operating operating in
either a bistatic of single antenna transmit mode (SAT) or pingpong mode where each antenna alternately transmits on every
other pulse as shown in Figure 2. Note, that the ping-pond has
twice the height acuity as the SAT mode.

Fig. 3. Simple 3-layer volume scattering medium consisting of air, snow and
ground or ice layer.

interface and at the ice/water or ice/bedrock interface that

can be used to assess basic sensitivities. Dene by s as
the Surface-to-Volume Scattering Ratio, g as the Bottom-toVolume Scattering Ratio, and as Exponential Attenuation in
Ice (2-Way), and set the ice volume scattering function, (z),
to be
(z) = e(zht ) + s (z ht ) + g (z hb ).

(5)

where ht is the elevation at the top of the volume, hb is

the height at the bottom of the volume (see Figure 3), and
the attenuation coefcient in terms of the effective dielectric
constant of the medium is given by
2

(6)
cos
where is the incidence angle and the one-way attenuation,
is as a function of the complex dielectric, , is

2Im( )
=
.
(7)

The amount of penetration for radar interferometer is a function of the volumetric correlation [3], v , given by
=

Fig. 2. Illustration of the interferometric mapping geometry showing both

the ping-pong and bistatic modes of data collection employed by GLISTIN.

The radar interferometric instrument takes the three primary radar observables consisting of the range, , Doppler, f ,
and interferometric phase, , given by
= |T P |

2v , 
f =

=

2p

ht
(z)eikz z dz

(1)

b
2,
+

 2
b
1 ,

v =

(2)
(3)

where T is the scatterer position vector, P is the platform

position vector when the scatterer was imaged, v is the velocity
vector,  is the unit line-of-sight imaging vector, b is the
baseline vector, that is the vector separating the two observing
antenna phase centers and is the radar wavelength. These
three equations can be inverted for the scatterer location vector
via

f


T = P +
v
2v

b2
  f
2 2p 1 + 4p b, v
2v (
v b) v

+
|(v b) v )|
b 1 b, v2


v b
2
2

1 , v , n


.
(4)
|v b|

hb

ht
(z)dz

(8)

hb

where kz is the vertical wavenumber given by

kz =

sin

=
h
2pb

(9)

where is the range, b is the perpendicular baseline length,

is the wavelength corrected for index of refraction in the
media and is the incidence angle in the scattering volume.
For the 3-layer volume described by Equation 5 the volumetric
equation using Equation 8 is given by
eikz ht

2
+1+r
sinh h
s e
2



h
h
h
2eikz 2
e 2 sinh (ikz + )
+
(ikz + )s
2





kz h
kz h
1r
sin
(1 + r) cos
+i
(10)
2
1+r
2

v =

h
2

III.

S IMPLE P ENETRATION M ODEL

A simple model for the ice scattering is an exponential attenuating volume with surface scattering at the air/ice

810

where r = gs and the interferometric penetration, hp , into the

volume is given by
hp =

1
Arg(v ).
kz

2015 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar(APSAR)

(11)

Fig. 7. A Ka-band reector deployed and precision surveyed at NSF Summit

Camp. Photo credit: Lana Cohen.
Fig. 4. Penetration depth for the simple 3-layer volume scattering medium
consisting of air, snow and ground or ice layer as function of surface-to volume
scattering ration ad incidence angle.

Fig. 5. Summit Camp location and ATM line location in Greenland. Yellow
dot is approximate Swiss camp location.

Interferometric penetration depth at Ka-band estimated

using the simple 3-layer model described above as a function
of incidence angle and surface-to-volume scattering ratio with
g =0, a snow depth of 3 m and the dielectric constant for
snow at Ka-band, [4],  = 3.14 i2.83 103 that has a
calculated electromagnetic penetration depth of Pd = 1.7 m at
40 incidence is shown Figure 4.
IV.

P ENETRATION I NTO G LACIER I CE IN G REENLAND

The GLISTIN radar collected data at Summit Station

(72 3446.5N, 38 2733.0W) on May 4, 2009 as shown in
Figure 5. Radar data was collected on two ight lines with
opposite headings of 18 and 162 arranged so that imaged
area was nearly identical. Figure 6 shows a 7.5 km square
region from both passes in the proximity of the in situ ground
truth data collected at the site projected into the 162 heading
imaging geometry. GLISTIN data consists of an elevation
layer, Ka-band backscatter image layer and an elevation precision layer, h , generated from the interferometric correlation
by

1 2
h
h 1

h =
=
,
(12)

2NL
2
at 3 m postings. Note that the elevation precision varies from
about 0.15 cm in the near range to more that 2.0 m in the far
range.
A. In Situ Ground Truth Data
Three forms of ground truth elevation data were collected
at Summit Station, Greenland consisting of 1) three corner

reectors (radar targets visible in radar imagery) oriented to be

visible on the 18 heading line with GPS survey measurements
of their locations, see Figure 7, 2) ATM lidar data collected
on ight lines parallel and crossing to the radar ight tracks
on the same day as the radar measurements, May 5, 2009, 3)
kinematic GPS measurements collected from a GPS antenna
mounted to roof of the snow tractor used to deploy the
reectors. Note, we subtracted the 1.7 m height of antenna
to obtain a ground elevation measurement, see Figure 7.
Corner reectors were meant to span the swath of the
GLISTIN radar, however due to logistical considerations during deployment they are all located in the far range of the 18
heading swath where the elevation precision of the GLISTIN
radar is about 2 m far less than the 15-20 cm in the near range.
GPS data and the parallel track of the ATM lidar data show up
in the near range of the 162 heading swath of the GLISTIN
radar.
The are about 18000 ATM lidar points overlapping with
the radar swath and 4200 GPS measurements. We checked the
elevation measurements of the GPS, ATM lidar, and corner
reector survey locations to each other to verify consistency.
We compared the GPS to ATM elevation measurements if they
were located within a distance of 2 radar pixels or 6 m. Forty
points met that criteria yielding a mean difference of 7 cm
and standard deviation of 4.6 cm. This compares well with
the expected accuracy of the ATM and GPS measurements
of less than 10 cm. Using the closest ATM or GPS point to
the corner reector and compensating for local slope (oriented
cross-track) we obtained elevation differences of -24.5 cm, 6.9 cm and -15.3 cm going from the top to bottom in the
imagery.
B. Dry Snow Penetration Estimate
Because the IPY version of the GLISTIN radar was a prototype instrument using borrowed hardware it did not have all the
calibration signals and hardware improvements incorporated
into the GLISTIN-A version. Thus a three step process was
used to generate calibrated Ka-band elevation measurements.
Initial calibration for radar range delay, differential range,
interferometric baseline and an overall phase constant were
made with the radar reector array at Rosamond Lake Bed,
CA. This was followed by line specic elevation adjustments
using the in situ ground truth data.
1)

Because IPY lacked appropriate phase calibration signals we used the crossing-track lidar data to remove
cross track tilts in the elevation data.

2015 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar(APSAR)

811

Fig. 6. GLISTIN magnitude, elevation and elevation precision data layers of Summit Camp in the vicinity where corner reectors were deployed and kinematic
GPS survey data were collected.

Fig. 8. GPS, ATM and corner reectors location overlain on GLISTIN Ka-band 162 heading imagery. Note that more of the ground truth is in the near range
for this heading whereas it is in the far range for the 18 heading data.

2)

3)

Next we used elevation difference data between the

162 and 18 heading to make a phase screen correction to account for residual multi-path corruption
to the elevation data in the far range.
Finally, we used the corner reector data to set the
absolute elevation of the GLISTIN radar data on the
18 heading pass and then forced the elevations on
the 162 heading to agree in the center of the swath
where the look angles are about equal (same amount
of penetration).

Using the corners to set the absolute elevation of the

GLISTIN data we can then use radar to ATM/GPS data to
study the relative radar interferometric penetration of GLISTIN

812

Ka-band into dry snow. A histogram of the elevation differences of the GLISTIN radar and the ATM/GPS data for all
the data and for the incidence angle range of 25-35 where the
bulk of the lidar/GPS are located is shown below. A mean
elevation difference of -0.27 m is obtained. Note, this matches
model estimates with a surface-to-volume scattering ratio of
about 7 dB. Table II gives the mean, standard deviation, mean
elevation precisions, maximal likelihood estimate and error for
incidence angles varying between 15 -55 in 10 bins.
V.

S EA I CE M EASUREMENTS

On April 25-26, 2015 the GLISTIN-A radar instrument

was deployed to Alaska to determine if measuring freeboard

2015 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar(APSAR)

Fig. 11.

Sea ice thickness measurements made using the GLISTIN instrument in the Beaufort Sea, Alaska in April, 2013.

Fig. 9. Histogram of the elevation differences between the GLISTIN radar

and the ATM/GPS measurements for all incidence angles and the 25 -35
containing the bulk of the ground control measurements.
TABLE II.
Incidence
Angles ( )
All
15 -25
25 -35
35 -45
45 -55

Fig. 10. Sea ice lines collected by the GLISTIN instrument in the Beaufort
Sea, Alaska. Yellow arrow indicates CryoSAT-II under ight line.

R ADAR ATM/GPS E LEVATIONS S TATISTICS

Number
Points (-)
17128
222
15126
1394
286

Mean
H (m)
-0.39
-0.91
-0.27
-0.89
-0.55

STD
H ((m)
0.95
0.49
0.65
2.16
2.12

Mean
h (m)
0.44
0.31
0.38
0.59
2.36

MLE
hp (m)
-0.29
-0.92
-0.27
-0.64
-0.48

MLE
hp (m)
0.003
0.020
0.003
0.025
0.101

height is possible as shown in Figure 10. This required that

we estimate the Ka-band penetration at near-nadir incidence
angles and determine if the height of open leads could be
measured. We arranged our ight lines to coincide with a
CyroSAT II overpass and had planned to have coincident lidar
data but that was not possible due to an aircraft grounding
delay. Figure 11 show Ka-band backscatter measurements on

the left and proles through the elevation, magnitude, and

interferometric correlation through leads at incidence angles
of 4 and 8 . Note, that the elevation measurements show
a reduction in elevation in the leads of about 1 m that is
accompanied by a corresponding drop in correlation within
the leads. Elevation measurements match the geoid height
very well. Model estimates of penetration coupled with similar
measurements made with an X-band radar with corresponding
lidar measurements all indicate there is very little penetration
at Ka-band.
VI.

C ONCLUSIONS

The GLISTIN radar has obtained interferometric elevation

measurements of dry snow in Greenland and sea ice in the
Beaufort Sea of Alasks at Ka-band. The elevation precision

2015 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar(APSAR)

813

of the measurements varied from approximately 15 cm in the

near range to over 2 m in the far range. Comparison with in
situ ground truth lidar and GPS data in Greenland showed a
penetration of roughly 27 cm. Measurements and modeling
and comparisons with X-band measurements indicate little
penetration into sea ice at Ka-band. Using leads it was possible
to make reasonable sea ice thickness measurements for low
incidence angles using GLISTIN measurements.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This paper was partially written at the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract
with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. We
gratefully acknowledge John Burkhart, Robert Hawley and
Eric Lutz for the GPS transect data. For the corner reector
deployment at Greenlands Summit we acknowledge NSFs
Summit Technicians. For the ATM lidar data and collection
we thank W.B. Krabill and the ATM team.
R EFERENCES
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Interferometer: An Airborne Proof-of-Concept Demonstration of HighPrecision Ka-Band Single-Pass Elevation Mapping, Geoscience and
Remote Sensing, IEEE Transactions on , vol.49, no.2, pp.827-842, Feb.
2011, doi: 10.1109/TGRS.2010.2057254.
[2] Rosen, P.A.; Hensley, S.; Joughin, I.R.; Fuk K.Li; Madsen, S.N.; Rodriguez, E.; Goldstein, Richard M., Synthetic aperture radar interferometry, Proceedings of the IEEE , vol.88, no.3, pp.333,382, March 2000,
doi: 10.1109/5.838084.
[3] E. Rodrguez and J. M. Martin. Theory and design of interferometric
synthetic-aperture radars, Proc. IEEE, 139:147159, 1992..
[4] Surdyk, S. and Fujita, S., Microwave Properties of Snow: Modeling and
Measurements, Geophysical Research Letters, Vol 22, No. 8, pp 965-968,
April, 1995.

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2015 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar(APSAR)