Future impact of the Harmony InSAR satellite mission on land ice monitoring

Current InSAR satellite missions have proven to be a valuable tool to monitor land ice worldwide. Applications are monitoring of glacier motion, ice/snow characteristics, but also glacier and snow type extend. Because these satellites work under all weather and lighting conditions, these missions are especially valuable in polar regions.

However, almost all current systems are restricted to repeat-pass interferometry and a single viewing geometry, limiting their use for land ice applications.

Harmony, an Earth Explorer 10 candidate mission, will strongly improve the capabilities of InSAR data for monitoring of land ice worldwide. This constellation comprises of two satellites that will fly as companions of one of the Sentinel-1 satellites. Harmony will make single-pass interferometry possible, which will be used to create improved, high-resolution digital elevation models to monitor ice mass loss. Additionally, single-pass interferometry will also provide us more details on ice and snow characteristics. Finally, every scene will be viewed from different look angles, which can enhance current ice flow estimates and allows the generation of precise three-dimensional ice motion products over the ice sheets.

In this study we show the future capabilities of the Harmony for land ice monitoring using performance models. Where possible, these models are calibrated and compared with already available Sentinel-1 data. Capabilities of the Sentinel-1 satellites for the monitoring of year-round ice movements and ice/snow characteristics are illustrated by a number of case studies.