Synergistic measurements of ocean winds and waves from SAR

Abstract

In this study we present a synergistic method to retrieve both ocean surface wave and wind fields from spaceborne quad-polarization (QP) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging mode data. This algorithm integrates QP-SAR wind vector retrieval model and the wave retrieval model, with consideration to the nonlinear mapping relationship between ocean wave spectra and SAR image spectra, in order to synergistically retrieve wind fields and wave directional spectra. The method does not require a priori information on the sea state. It combines the observed VV-polarized SAR image spectra with the retrieved wind vectors from the VH-polarized SAR image, to estimate the wind-generated wave directional spectra. The differences between the observed SAR spectra and optimal SAR image spectra associated with the wind waves are interpreted as the contributions from the swell waves. The retrieved ocean wave spectra are used to estimate the integrated spectral wave parameters such as significant wave heights, wavelengths, wave directions and wave periods. The wind and wave parameters retrieved by QP-SAR are validated against those measured by the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) directional wave buoys under different sea states. The validation results show that the QP-SAR SAR has potential to simultaneously measure the ocean surface waves and wind fields from space.