An improved atmospheric correction method in repeat-pass InSAR measurements

Abstract

ABSTRACTAs is well known, the problem of atmospheric phase delays is currently one of the major limitations to high precision repeat-pass interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) applications. Therefore, accurately mitigating atmospheric phase delays is a key but unresolved problem. In recent decades, many researchers have attempted to mitigate the atmospheric phase delays. A typical method is to calculate the atmospheric phase along radar line of sight direction using precipitable water vapour products. However, this method completely neglects the atmospheric turbulence and heterogeneity in the horizontal direction when the zenith wet delays are converted to slant wet delays, reducing the accuracy of the approach. In this article, we systematically analysed the atmospheric turbulence and heterogeneity in the horizontal direction as well as the vertical stratification of water vapour in the troposphere. From this analysis, we found that the atmospheric turbulence and heterogeneity in the horizontal direction cannot be neglected in estimating atmospheric phase delays. Moreover, the vertical stratification of water vapour and the satellite orbit azimuth can be integrated into the calculation of slant phase delays. We therefore propose an improved atmospheric correction method in repeat-pass InSAR measurements, weighted-sampling radiometer correction. The proposed method was applied to the investigation of ground subsidence in an area of Beijing, China to validate its feasibility and accuracy. The results illustrate that atmospheric phase delays and ground subsidence information can be retrieved more accurately using the proposed method than was obtained using the conventional method.