Building Seasonal Maps of Antarctica's Temperature with Repeat-Pass Microwave Interferometry - Conference Paper

We discuss an approach to measuring high-resolution mapsof Antarctic ice sheet temperatures using repeat-pass sparselysampled microwave interferometry. This approach followsfrom the inference that the relative invariance of ice sheettemperatures on annual timescales obviates the need for highsnapshot sensitivity imposed as a requirement for observingmore variable regions of the Earth system with interferometers such as SMOS. Such measurements could hypothetically be conducted with spatial resolutions less than 10 kmusing a small constellation of satellites. We discuss specifically how modifications to sheet-base geothermal heat fluxcould manifest as observable thermal signatures and a strategy to form images from a mosaic of multiple heterogeneoussparsely sampled observations, and we conclude with comments on necessary areas for future investigations.