New Radar Interferometric Time Series Analysis Toolbox Released
Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) has become an important geodetic
tool for measuring deformation of Earth’s surface due to various geophysical phenomena,
including slip on earthquake faults, subsurface migration of magma, slow‐moving
landslides, movement of shallow crustal fluids (e.g., water and oil), and glacier flow.
Airborne and spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) instruments transmit microwaves
toward Earth’s surface and detect the returning reflected waves. The phase of the
returned wave depends on the distance between the satellite and the surface, but it is
also altered by atmospheric and other effects. InSAR provides measurements of surface
deformation by combining amplitude and phase information from two SAR images of
the same location taken at different times to create an interferogram. Several existing
open‐source analysis tools [Rosen et al., 2004; Rosen et al., 2011; Kampes et al., 2003 ;
Sandwell et al., 2011] enable scientists to exploit observations from radar satellites
acquired at two different epochs to produce a surface displacement map.