Project Funding: 2006 - 2009

NRA: 2005 NASA: Remote Sensing Science for Carbon and Climate   

Funded by NASA

Abstract:
For addressing the Remote Sensing Science for Carbon Cycle program's need of performing modeling studies to elucidate requirements for future space-based measurements of vegetation 3-D structure, this project will be constructed around the principal goal of determining the effects of time varying errors (decorrelation) on the ability of InSAR to invert for vegetation 3-D structure and to model the impact of these errors vs. needed accuracies on a real spaceborne mission. As described in this proposal, a key uncertainty in the development and design of future NASA InSAR missions is the impact of temporal decorrelation on the retrieval of geophysical parameters, including vegetation structure. Interferometric SAR is an important technology for exploring the earth, and has been applied to topographic mapping, crustal and glacial motion, and vegetation studies. To reach our principal research goal, we propose to achieve three specific objectives. These are: 1.) Use observations from existing sensors such as AIRSAR, SEASAT and JERS-1, as well as ALOS/PALSAR (to be launched in the winter of 2005) to create a model for temporal decorrelation based on time separation between observations and do so for representative vegetation structural types, 2.) Determine the impact of temporal decorrelation on vegetation 3-dimensional structure retrieval and 3.) Model and specify how temporal decorrelation on structure retrieval algorithms affects requirements for a realistic InSAR space-based mission for achieving the goals of the Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems Roadmap. By developing studies supporting InSAR missions and their possible configurations, we further NASA's strategic objectives to conduct "a program of research and technology development to advance Earth observation from space, improve scientific understanding, and demonstrate new technologies with the potential to improve future operational systems".

2011 NASA Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems Joint Science Workshop Poster(s)

• A Segmentation Approach for Estimating Forest Structural Characteristics from Lidar and Radar: Analysis and Error Assessment   --   (Paul Robert Siqueira, Razi Ahmed, Caitlin Dickinson, Bruce Chapman, Scott Hensley, Kathleen Bergen)   [abstract]

2008 NASA Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems Joint Science Workshop Posters

• SAR, InSAR and Lidar Studies for Measuring Vegetation Structure over the Harvard Forest   --   (Paul Robert Siqueira, Razi Ahmed, Scott Hensley, Bruce Chapman, Kathleen Bergen)   [abstract]   [poster]
• A Survey of Temporal Decorrelation from Spaceborne Repeat-pass SIR-C and ALOS/PALSAR L-band InSAR Observatoins   --   (Paul Robert Siqueira, Razi Ahmed, Bruce Chapman, Scott Hensley, Kathleen Bergen)   [abstract]   [poster]

More details may be found in the following project profile(s):

• NASA Terrestrial Ecology (TE) Project Profile