The forward modeling exercise compared backscatter estimated
from Eq. (7) to observed backscatter coefficients (Fig. 2; Table 4). For C-band RADARSAT-2 and corn, the correlation coefficients (R values) between the observed and estimated backscatter coefficients were 0.40 (HH), 0.46 (VV) and 0.82 (HV) (Table 4). Comparable results were found for soybeans where R values of 0.45 (HH), 0.47 (VV) and 0.80 (HV) are reported. These results confirm that the WCM model was better calibrated for the linear cross-polarization (HV) than for the HH or VV polarizations. The sensitivity to HV backscatter is explained by the presence of significant crop canopy and the known response of cross polarization to volume scattering within these canopies