This document discusses the use of covariance functions and structure functions to model atmospheric noise in interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) data for solid earth deformation studies. It presents analysis of InSAR data from the Los Angeles basin from 2002-2010, showing the atmospheric noise is generally within an order of magnitude. The prediction-error filter method is tested for interpolating atmospheric delays from InSAR data. Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) near-infrared data are also analyzed to independently characterize the atmosphere and potentially provide global covariance and structure function models.