Temperature dependence of the backscattering coefficient measured by ALOS PALSAR during cooling and heating of tundra topsoil.

Abstract

In this paper, dependences of backscattering coefficient on Arctic tundra soil temperature were investigated. The backscattering coefficient was measured by ALOS PALSAR (1.3GHz) over areas near to Imnaviat weather station in the North Slope of Alaska in the period from . It has been experimentally and theoretically shown that there is a strong correlation relationship no worse than 0.76 between the surface soil temperature measured by weather stations and backscattering coefficient. The variations of the backscattering coefficient was found to be about 5-6 dB over the test site when soil surface temperature changes from -10С to 10С. This study contributes to further understanding the processes of scattering of frozen Arctic soils that is pertinent to developing new remote sensing algorithms for the permafrost region.