Recovery of Snow Radar Velocities From Horizontally Unconstrained Aerial Ground Penetrating Radar Transects
Abstract
Ground-penetrating radar data collected over snow can be used to determine the amount of stored water that will be released during melt-off. Aerial platforms are preferable for the collection of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) over snow-covered surfaces because of the lengths of transects that can be surveyed in a given time and the minimal disturbance of the surface. Small unoccupied airborne systems (sUAS) especially prove to be ideal due to their slow flight speeds and low altitude flight capabilities. However, such systems present certain problems regarding processing of the data. In particular, if the GPS unit on the sUAS fails or lacks sub-centimeter accuracy, uncertainties in horizontal trace positions can lead to inaccurate snow radar velocity estimates. In this study, we developed a technique to utilize surface diffractions to determine horizontal trace locations from geospatially unconstrained data, and then utilized subsurface diffractions to develop a laterally heterogeneous snow radar velocity model. From this velocity model, we can recover the snow water equivalent over the length of the transect. We used synthetic GPR data to assess the accuracy of our procedure and then applied it to real data collected at Loveland Pass, CO.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFMNS11C0654B
- Keywords:
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- 0925 Magnetic and electrical methods;
- EXPLORATION GEOPHYSICS;
- 0933 Remote sensing;
- EXPLORATION GEOPHYSICS;
- 1830 Groundwater/surface water interaction;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 1835 Hydrogeophysics;
- HYDROLOGY