The space-borne polarimetric interferometric synthetic aperture radar (POLinSAR) working at UHF/VHF
P and L bands are sensitive to the ionospheric effects such as phase perturbation
Faraday rotation
etc.which will cause POLinSAR system performance deterioration in imaging and geophysical parameter inversion.This paper analyzed the image defocusing and polarization rotation decorrelation induced by ionospheric irregularities and Faraday rotation.In addition
simulations with typical system parameters and ionosphere conditions were analyzed.The results show that the ionospheric effects can both introduce decorrelations and limit the polarimetric vector space of POLinSAR systems on coherence optimization which affect POLinSAR applications significantly.