Ricerc@Sapienza

Spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radars (SARs), operating at L-band and above, offer microwave observations of the Earth at very high spatial resolution in almost all-weather conditions. Nevertheless, precipitating clouds can significantly affect the signal backscattered from the ground surface in both amplitude and phase, especially at X band and beyond. This evidence has been assessed by numerous recent efforts analyzing data collected by COSMO-SkyMed (CSK) and TerraSAR-X (TSX) missions at X band.

Rain, snow, and volcanic ash clouds contain particles generated by different physical and chemical processes. When electromagnetic radiation interacts with particle distribution, causing absorption and scattering, the backscattered power enables the retrieval of useful geophysical parameters of particle distribution. This is the measurement principle of microwave weather (meteorological) radar, monostatic remote sensing that can exploit Rayleigh and Mie backscattering to remotely probe atmospheric clouds.