Dr. Philipp Bernhard

Dr. Philipp Bernhard

Lecturer at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering

ETH Zürich

Erdbeobachtung u. Fernerkundung

HIF D 12.2

Laura-Hezner-Weg 7

8093 Zürich

Switzerland

Additional information

Research area

Research Interest

Expertise in processing and analysing microwave synthetic aperture radar (TanDEM-X, TerraSAR-X, Sentinel-1) and optical (Sentinel-2, Rapid-Eye, Planet-Scope) satellite data.

Remote Sensing of fnfrastructure (railways) and the cryosphere with focus on permafrost thaw in the arctic, glacier dynamics.

Persistent Scatterer Interferometry, digital elevation model generation using bistatic SAR observations, elevation model analysis, signal processing and algorithm development

Current Research

My present research is focused on the application of spaceborne SAR techniques in different fields including infrastructure monitoring and measuring changes in the Arctic permafrost regions. In the field of infrastructure monitoringmy focus is on developing monitoring methods for railway systems. My second research focus is on quantifying the impact of thawing arctic permafrost (hillslope thermokarst) and its contribution to the carbon-climate feedback on the pan-arctic scale.

 

04.2022 - today: Postdoc, Environmental Engineering, ETH Zürich
Project: Identification of proxy signals for spaceborne SAR-based detection of ballast problems

04.2017-04.2022 PhD studies, Environmental Engineering, ETH Zürich
Dissertation title: Large-scale monitoring of rapid permafrost thaw with satellite radar interferometry
Advisor: Prof. Simon Zwieback, Geophysical Institute (University of Alaska Fairbanks) and Prof. Irena Hajnsek, Earth Obeservation and Remote Sensing (ETH Zürich/German Aerospace Center)}

09.2014-02.2017 Master of Science in Physics, ETH Zürich
Thesis: Simulating effects of AGN radiation on the gas ionization of the host galaxy
Advisors: Prof. Kevin Schawinski Galaxy, Black Hole Astrophysics Research Group (ETH Zürich) and Prof. Romain Teyssier Computational Astrophysics Research Group (University of Zürich)

09.2011-09.2014 Bachelor of Science in Physics, ETH Zürich
Thesis: Environmental influence on galaxies in a cluster environment
Advisors: Dr. Oliver Hahn, Observational Cosmology Research Group (ETH Zuerich)

 

Additional information

Publications:

M.J. Koss, L. Blecha, P. Bernhard, C.L. Hung, J.R. Lu, B. Trakhtenbrot, E. Treister, A. Weigel, L.F. Sartori, R. Mushotzky, and K. Schawinski, "A population of luminous accreting black holes with hidden mergers" in Nature, vol. 563(7730), pp.214-216, 2018, doi: 10.1038/s41586-018-0652-7
P. Bernhard, S. Zwieback, S. Leinss and I. Hajnsek, "Mapping Retrogressive Thaw Slumps Using Single-Pass TanDEM-X Observations" in IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, vol. 13, pp. 3263-3280, 2020, doi: 10.1109/JSTARS.2020.3000648
S. Leinss and P. Bernhard, "TanDEM-X: Deriving InSAR height changes and velocity dynamics of great aletsch glacier", in IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, vol. 14, pp.4798-4815, 2021, doi: 10.1109/JSTARS.2021.3078084
P. Bernhard, S. Zwieback, N. Bergner, and I. Hajnsek, "Assessing volumetric change distributions and scaling relations of retrogressive thaw slumps across the Arctic" in The Cryosphere, vol. 16, pp. 1–15, 2022, doi:10.5194/tc-16-1-2022
P. Bernhard, S. Zwieback and I. Hajnsek, "Accelerated Mobilization of Organic Carbon from Retrogressive Thaw Slumps on the Northern Taymyr Peninsula," submitted to The Cryosphere 2022

Conference proceedings:
P. Bernhard, S. Zwieback and I. Hajnsek, "Detecting retrogressive thaw slumps using single-pass bistatic TanDEM-X observations," IGARSS 2019 - 2019 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2019, pp. 4577-4580, doi: 10.1109/IGARSS.2019.8898988.
I. Hajnsek, G. Fischer, G. Parrella, P. Bernhard and  S. Leinss: TanDEM-X for Cryosphere Applications, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-8458, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-8458, 2020.
S. Leinss, S. Li, P. Bernhard, and O. Frey: Temporal Multi-Looking of SAR Image Series for Glacier Velocity Determination and Speckle Reduction, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-3643, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-3643, 2020.
P. Bernhard, S. Zwieback, and I. Hajnsek, "Area and volume quantification of Arctic thaw slumps using time-series of digital elevation models," 2021 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium IGARSS, 2021, pp. 800-803, doi: 10.1109/IGARSS47720.2021.9554503.
S. Li, S. Leinss, P. Bernhard and I. Hajnsek, "Recent Surge of the South Rimo Glacier, Karakoram: Dynamics Characterization Using SAR Data," 2021 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium IGARSS, 2021, pp. 5520-5523, doi: 10.1109/IGARSS47720.2021.9553193.
P. Bernhard, S. Zwieback, S. Leinss and I. Hajnsek, "Detection of retrogressive thaw slumps using TanDEM-X observations: Possibilities and limitations," EUSAR 2021; 13th European Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar, 2021, pp. 1-6.

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