Compensation of forest effect for the retrieval of snow mass: a contribution to the CoReH2O mission

In preparation of the satellite mission CoReH2O, one of the three missions selected for scientific and technical feasibility studies within the Earth Explorer Programme of the European Space Agency, experimental and theoretical studies started in order to investigate backscatter properties of snow covered terrain and improve the methods for retrieval of snow physical properties from SAR data. The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of vegetation in the retrieval of snow parameters from backscattering measurements. First a radiative transfer model, able to simulating scattering from a vegetated snow-covered terrain was developed and implemented. The model was validated with real SAR data were acquired in the boreal region of Sodankyla (northern Finland) using a multi-frequency dataset (C-X-Ku band) . A sensitivity of ?0 to the snow water equivalent (SWE) was conducted for different biomass values in order to evaluate the maximum biomass (or cover fraction) acceptable for retrieval purposes. Finally the retrieval of SWE was computed for forested areas by using a maximum likelihood function. E.M.