FARADAY ROTATION PREDICTION VALUES ON URSA:

WHAT IS FARADAY ROTATION?

Every polarized radio wave (e.g. a linearly polarized SAR signal) that propagates through the ionosphere
undergoes Faraday rotation (FR), i.e. a rotation of its polarization vector. For explaining this effect we
consider linearly polarized signals as being composed of two circularly polarized waves rotating in opposite
directions. These waves traverse the ionosphere with different propagation velocities due to electrons
rotating around magnetic field lines. If the two circularly polarized waves are recombined after traversing the
ionosphere they result in a linearly polarized signal whose polarization angle is rotated from its original
value, a phenomenon known as Faraday rotation. Find a schematic representation of Faraday rotation effects
below:

Legend:
B: Magnetic field vector
V: Ionospheric conditions
d: Length of path through medium
β: Faraday rotation angle

Faraday rotation is frequency dependent and increases in magnitude with decreasing signal frequency.
Therefore, data from X- and C-band SARs are practically unaffected, while effects on L-band SARs (e.g.
ALOS PALSAR) can be significant.
Besides the frequency dependence, the magnitude of Faraday rotation primarily depends on the following
three parameters:
• The conditions of the ionosphere during acquisition (more precisely: the density of free electrons),
mainly influenced by the solar activity, the geographic location, and the time of day,
• the magnitude and
• orientation of the Earth’s magnetic field.

FARADAY ROTATION PREDICTION

Faraday rotation angles can be predicted if the three aforementioned parameters are known. On the
URSA order interface we provide you with a listing of predicted Faraday rotations for all PALSAR
acquisitions in the archive. This is intended to aid in data selection for researchers wishing to avoid FR
effects, or for those scientists deliberately targeting these effects.
As is true for every predicted parameter, a given FR prediction is only an approximation of its true value.
An analysis of the prediction quality yielded an accuracy of about 1º. Inaccuracies stem from low spatial and
temporal resolution of the input data required by the model. For further information on the model used
please refer to this publication (make “this publication” a link).

REFERENCES
More detailed information on this topic can be found e.g. in the following literature:
1. Z.-W. Xu, J. Wu, and Z.-S. Wu, “A Survey of Ionospheric Effects on Space-based Radar,” Waves in Random Media, vol. 14,
pp. 189–273, 2004
2. F. Meyer, R. Bamler, N. Jakowski, and T. Fritz, “The Potential of Low-Frequency SAR Systems for Mapping Ionospheric TEC
Distributions,” Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 560–564, 2006
3. A. Freeman, and S. Saatchi, “On the Detection of Faraday Rotation in Linearly Polarized L-Band SAR Backscatter Signatures,”
Trans. On Geoscience and Remote Sensing, vol. 42, No. 8, pp. 1607–1616, 2004
4. A. Freeman, “Calibration of Linearly Polarized Polarimetric SAR Data Subject to Faraday Rotation,” Trans. On Geoscience and
Remote Sensing, vol. 42, No. 8, pp. 1617–1624, 2004
5. T. Boerner, K.P. Papathanassiou, N. Marquart, M. Zink, M. Meininger, P.J. Meadows, A.J. Rye, P. Wright and B. Rosich Tell,
“ALOS PALSAR Products Verification”, Proc. Of IGARSS’07, Barcelona, 2007, available on
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/dynhome.jsp
6. J. Nicoll, F. Meyer, and M. Jehle, “Prediction and detection of Faraday rotation in ALOS PALSAR data”, Proc. Of IGARSS’07,
Barcelona, 2007, available on http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/dynhome.jsp