Using a Mesoscale Meteorological Model to Reduce the Effect of Tropospheric Water Vapour from DInSAR Data: A Case Study for the Island of Tenerife, Canary Islands

Measurements of ground displacement through classical Differential Interferometric SAR (DInSAR) and advanced DInSAR techniques have been carried out over the entire actively volcanic island of Tenerife, Canary Islands. However, a detailed analysis of the effect of tropospheric water vapour on DInSAR at Tenerife should be carried out to evaluate its influence, including correction models that might improve the accuracy of DInSAR derived deformation signals. Unlike water vapour correction models that are based on space platforms (e.g. MODIS and MERIS), we present an alternative approach that is based on precise water vapour estimations derived from mesoscale numerical meteorological models, in particular the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The application of this approach to a set of DInSAR observations of the island of Tenerife shows encouraging results.This work was partially funded by the Canarian ACIISI projects SOLSUBC200801000243 and proID20100121. Research by JF and PJG has been supported by the Spanish MICINN projects: GEOMOD (CGL2005-05500-C02), PEL2G (CGL2008-06426-C01-01/BTE) and CGL2010-21366-C04-01, and has been also done in the frame of the Moncloa Campus of International Excellence (UCM-UPM, CSIC). PJG was partially funded by a UCM PhD Thesis Research Fellowship. The authors thank the University of La Laguna, the Agencia Canaria de Investigación, Innovación y Sociedad de la Información and the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) for partial support (Proyectos estructurantes de la ULL).Peer reviewe