Calibrating interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) images with regional GPS network atmosphere models

Abstract

Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) technology provides a valuable tool for obtaining Earth surface deformation and topography at high spatial resolution for crustal deformation studies. Similar to global positioning system (GPS), InSAR measurements are affected by the Earth's ionospheric and tropospheric layers as the electromagnetic signals significantly refract while propagating through the different layers. While GPS signals propagating through the neutral atmosphere are affected primarily by the distribution, pressure and temperature of atmospheric gases, including water vapour, the propagation through the ionosphere is mainly affected by the number of free electrons along the signal path. Here, we present the use of dense regional GPS networks for extracting tropospheric zenith delays and ionospheric total electron content (TEC) maps in order to reduce the noise levels in InSAR images. The results show significant reduction in the root mean square (RMS) values when simultaneously combining the two corrections, both at short time periods where no surface deformation is expected, and at longer periods, where imaging of localized subsidence and fault creep is enhanced.