The sensitivity of radar backscatter to the amount of intercepted rain in temperate deciduous forests is analysed to determine the feasibility of retrieval of this parameter from satellite radar data. A backscatter model is validated with X-band radar measurements of a single tree exposed to rain. A good agreement between simulation and measurements is observed and this demonstrates the ability...

Mapping forest aboveground biomass (AGB) using satellite data is an important task, particularly for reporting of carbon stocks and changes under climate change legislation. It is known that AGB can be mapped using synthetic aperture radar (SAR), but relationships between AGB and radar backscatter may be confounded by variations in biophysical forest structure (density, height or cover fraction...

A downscaling method of the microwave surface soil moisture is applied to the PBMR data collected during the Monsoon ’90 experiment. The downscaling method requires (1) the coarse resolution microwave observation (2) the distribution at fine scale of soil temperature and (3) the distribution at fine scale of the surface conditions composed of atmospheric forcing and the parameters involved in t...

The application of an airborne electronically steered thinned array L-band radiometer (ESTAR) for soil moisture mapping was investigated over the semiarid rangeland Walnut Gulch Watershed located In southeastern Arizona. During the experiment, antecedent rainfall and evaporation were very dif ferent and resulted in a wide range of soil moisture conditions. The high spatial variability of rainfa...

The literature has shown that the overall efficiency of exogenously imposed tournaments is reduced by a high variance in performance. This paper reports results from an experiment analyzing whether allowing subjects to self-select into different payment schemes is reducing the variability of performance in tournaments. We show that when the subjects choose to enter a tournament instead of a pie...

We report, for the first time, photometric variability of L dwarfs in R band. Out of three L1 dwarfs (2MASS 1300+19, 2MASS 1439+19, and 2MASS 1658+70) observed, we have detected R band variability in 2MASS 1300+19 and 2MASS 1439+19. The objects exhibit variability of amplitude ranging from 0.01 mag to 0.02 mag. Object 2MASS 1658+70, turns out to be non-variable in both R and I band. However, mo...

F. Aharonian, A.G. Akhperjanian, A.R. Bazer-Bachi, M. Beilicke, W. Benbow, D. Berge, K. Bernlöhr, C. Boisson, O. Bolz, V. Borrel, I. Braun, A.M. Brown, R. Bühler, I. Büsching, S. Carrigan, P.M. Chadwick, L.-M. Chounet, G. Coignet, R. Cornils, L. Costamante, B. Degrange, H.J. Dickinson, A. Djannati-Ataı̈, L.O’C. Drury, G. Dubus, K. Egberts, D. Emmanoulopoulos, P. Espigat, F. Feinstein, E. Ferrero...

Test observations show that the deployable 4-band dipoles degrade VLA antenna sensitivity by approximately 7% at L-band, 8% at C-band, and 6% at X-band. The loss at higher frequencies is unknown, but is expected to be less. The dipoles also introduce a variability of 1 – 3% in the antenna cross-polarization at L-band only. This variability will degrade L-band polarimetry capabilities, limiting ...