CoAuthors

Fabien Blarel (LEGOS, France); Eric Mougin (GET, France); Philippe Paillou (LAB, France); Fabrice Papa (LEGOS, France); Catherine Prigent (LERMA, France); Frédérique Rémy (LEGOS, France); Jean-Pierre Wigneron (ISPA, France); Mehrez Zribi (CESBIO, France)

Earth observation using active microwave sensors offers an all-weather global monitoring of every type of surface (ocean, land and ice-caps) in a wide range of frequencies, spatio-temporal resolutions, incidence angles and polarizations. Over land, backscattering coefficients from radar scatterometers, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and radar altimetry provide useful information on land surface characteristics related to land cover, vegetation density, surface soil moisture (SSM), salinity or detection of flooded areas, and the temporal dynamics of these key environmental variables.
The CFOSAT payload is composed of two sensors: SWIM (Surface Wave Investigation and Monitoring) a near-nadir (0 to 10° incidence) real-aperture Ku-Band azimuthally scanning radar and SCAT a radar scatterometer operating at Ku-Band aiming at moderate incidence angles (26° to 46°) with a rotating fan-beam antenna. These two innovative instruments will provide new and complementary information on the characteristics of land surfaces.
Here we propose to analyze the response of land surfaces and ice sheets using the first data acquired by SWIM and SCAT over of backscattering from SWIM and CFOSAT over three types of environments presenting stable backscattering at Ku and C bands from both altimetry and scatterometry: semi-arid areas, tropical rainforests and Vistok lake in Antarctica. Results will be compared to the results obtained satellite radar altimetry at Ku-band form Jason-3 and Sentinel-3A.