Atmospheric propagation delay of the radar signal remains the single biggest factor limiting insar's potential for geological hazard monitoring and mitigation. In particular, the moist delay by…

This federal contract award, valued at $393,767.96, was granted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS) division. The contract supports research to improve atmospheric delay correction for the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission, which is intended to monitor geological hazards. The research aims to develop methods for jointly estimating water vapor and ground elevation contributions to observed interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) data, leveraging weather model inputs. This project will inform the NISAR Science Definition Team's efforts to design a global atmospheric delay correction strategy for the mission. The contract does not have a set-aside designation. As part of the larger University of Miami, RSMAS has a history of federal contract and grant awards supporting oceanographic, atmospheric, and climate research for agencies such as NOAA, NASA, and the Department of Defense.

Atmospheric propagation delay of the radar signal remains the single biggest factor limiting insar's potential for geological hazard monitoring and mitigation. In particular, the moist delay by atmospheric water vapor exhibits structured variability that confounds detection of surface elevation changes. Here the nisar SDT candidate PI proposes to CO-advise a student with an atmospheric science colleague to revisit the problem of jointly estimating the water vapor and ground elevation contributions to an observed insar delay map, given a set of best available ancillary data inputs. These inputs include weather model estimates of the specific humidity pattern at sampling time. We will determine the effectiveness of various numerical weather models for detailed instantaneous vapor estimates to generate tropospheric correction products for insar data using study areas in southern california and northern india. This project will inform efforts of the nisar SDT to design a global atmospheric delay correction strategy for the mission, for both low-latency and definitive atmospheric correction products. For this project we will organize a workshop on insar atmospheric correction at the national center for atmospheric research (ncar) in boulder, CO. The project deliverable is a detailed plan for atmospheric correction products as part of the science algorithm definition responsibilities of the SDT.