SNOW EXTENT DISCRIMINATION IN ALPINE AREAS FROM POLARIMETRIC AND MULTI-FREQUENCY SAR DATA

In this paper, two methods are presented in order to discriminate dry snow in Alpine areas. These methods are applied to multi-frequency SAR data acquired over the French Alps during the SIR-C campaign in April and Oc-tober 1994. An electromagnetic scattering model is developed, based on the vector radiative transfer equation, to simulate the fully polarimetric response of a snow cover. The first method is based on a winter to summer matrix element ratio. The second method is based on the OPCE procedure aiming to optimize the contrast between snow areas and other types of media.