Remote sensing of atmospheric water vapor from synthetic aperture radar interferometry: case studies in Shanghai, China

Abstract

© The Authors.The estimation of atmospheric water vapor with high resolution is important for operational weather forecasting, climate monitoring, atmospheric research, and numerous other applications. The 40 m × 40 m and 30 m × 30 m differential precipitable water vapor (δPWV) maps are generated with C- and L-band synthetic aperture radar interferometry (InSAR) images over Shanghai, China, respectively. The δPWV maps are accessed via comparisons with the spatiotemporally synchronized PWV measurements from the European Centre for MediumRange Weather Forecasts Interim reanalysis at the finest resolution and global positioning system observations, respectively. Results reveal that the δPWV maps can be estimated from both C- and L-band InSAR images with an accuracy of better than 2.0 mm, which, therefore, demonstrates the ability of InSAR observations at both C- and L-band to detect the water vapor distribution with high spatial resolution.