Active and Passive Vegetated Surface Models With Rough Surface Boundary Conditions From NMM3D

Abstract

In this paper, we derive an expression of the brightness temperatures of a vegetated surface based on the tau-omega model with the rough surface boundary condition that replaces the conventional <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">exp</i> (- <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">h</i> ) model by NMM3D (Numerical Simulations of 3D Maxwell equations). A purpose of the paper is that the same physical rough surface scattering model based on NMM3D and the same physical parameters of rms heights and correlation lengths can be used for both passive and active remote sensing of the same scene of vegetated surfaces. The bistatic scattering of rough surfaces are decomposed into the coherent wave and the co-polarization and the cross-polarization of the incoherent waves to quantify the contribution of each of these components. Numerical results are illustrated for a variety of roughness conditions. Comparisons are made with the exp(- <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">h</i> ) model. Results are compared with the experimental passive measurements of PORTOS 1993 for bare soil cases. Data cubes for grassland are calculated for both active and passive signatures at L band. Comparisons are then made with the L band PALS data for the grassland of SGP99 using these data cubes.