The ALPTOMOSAR Field Experiment, funded by the European Space Agency (ESA), aims to investigate the capabilities and potential of L-Band SAR tomography for studying internal structures of glaciers and ice sheets from space. The project is led by DEIB. Project partners are ENVEO (Austria), Aresys (Italy), and MetaSensing (the Netherlands.) The acquisition campaign was carried out over the Mittelbergferner, Austrian Alps from 26 February to 11 March 2014.
It includes the collection of in-situ measurements of snow and glacier ice properties and coincidently acquired airborne L-Band SAR data. In-situ measurements were carried out in order to characterise the winter snow pack on top of the glacier ice, by measuring snow depth transects and vertical profiles of physical snow properties within snow pits including density, layering, grainsize, and hardness.
Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) data were acquired over a total length of 18 km. SAR data were acquired by repeatedly flying the sensor along an oval-like racetrack, so as to collect multiple points of view from two opposite directions.
This flight plan was designed to provide 3D imaging capabilities at a vertical resolution of few meters, in such a way as to provide sensitivity to the glacier vertical structure. Results clearly show surface scattering contributions as well as in depth contributions from tenths of meters below, associated with the internal glacier structure.