Conference Agenda
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
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Daily Overview |
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Cryosphere Applications I Location: Red Hall Session Chair: Francesco Banda, aresys Session Chair: Georg Fischer, German Aerospace Center (DLR) | |
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3:10pm - 3:30pm
Antarctic BIOMASS Tomography: Preliminary Results 1: aresys, Italy; 2: DTU, Denmark; 3: Politecnico di Milano, Italy Understanding structure and dynamics of ice sheets and glaciers is of crucial importance [1], as ice masses represent a major storage of freshwater and influence global water circulation. Loss of ice masses is exacerbated by warming climate, with a negative impact on sea level rise. There is thus an urgent need for globally improving knowledge about ice sheets and glaciers, which is difficult to achieve only with in situ studies, due to limited coverage and often access difficulties. Satellite remote sensing can provide a bridge, with Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) able to acquire information in all-weather, day and night conditions. SAR interferometry (InSAR) and tomography (TomoSAR) at long wavelengths (P and L bands) give access to the internal structure of ice by combining multiple SAR surveys from slightly different viewpoints [2]. ESA’s BIOMASS [3], successfully launched April 29, 2025, features the first spaceborne P-band SAR with fully polarimetric capabilities and orbits enabling InSAR and TomoSAR. BIOMASS primary target are world’s forests, though the long wavelength of about 70 cm is an unprecedented opportunity for more and equally important applications, among which the investigation of subsurface structures, including icy regions. In particular, orbits deployed for antenna pattern characterization over BIOMASS transponder during In-Orbit Commissioning (IOC) phase are suitable for TomoSAR imaging over Antarctica. In this contribution we present preliminary BIOMASS TomoSAR results over Antarctica. We processed a dataset acquired in the July/August 2025 IOC phase over the Shackleton Ice Shelf System [4], an increasingly studied site gaining attention due to its vulnerability and important role played in stabilizing part of the East Antarctic ice sheet. Contextually, we extended Multi-Squint InSAR (MS-InSAR) presented in a companion contribution [6] to multi-baseline, to phase calibrate the data stack and counteract coherence losses due to severe ionosphere at high latitudes. References [1] P. L. Whitehouse, N. Gomez, M. A. King, and D. A. Wiens, “Solid Earth change and the evolution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet,” Nature communications, 2019 [2] F. Banda, J. Dall, and S. Tebaldini, “Single and multipolarimetric P-band SAR tomography of subsurface ice structure,” IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 2015 [3] S. Quegan, et al., “The European Space Agency BIOMASS mission: Measuring forest above-ground biomass from space,” Remote Sensing of Environment, 2019 [4] Thompson, Sarah S et al., “Glaciological history and structural evolution of the shackleton ice shelf system, east antarctica, over the past 60 years,” The Cryosphere, 2023 [6] S. Tebaldini, F. Salvaterra, F. Banda, and M. Pinheiro, “Multi-layer ionosphere correction in BIOMASS interferometry,” Submitted to POLINSAR 2026 | |
