The validation of HY-2 altimetermeasurements of a significant wave height based on buoy data

HY-2 has been launched by China on August 16, 2011 which assembles multi-microwave remote sensing payloads in a body and has the ability of monitoring ocean dynamic environments. The HY-2 satellite data need to be calibrated and validated before being put into use. Based on the in-situ buoys from the Nation- al Data Buoy Center （NDBC）, Ku-band significant wave heights （SWH, hs） of HY-2 altimeter are validated. Eleven months of HY-2 altimeter Level 2 products data are chose from October 1, 2011 to August 29, 2012. Using NDBC 60 buoys yield 902 collocations for HY-2 by adopting collocation criteria of 30 min for tempo- ral window and 50 km for a spatial window. An overall RMS difference of the SWH between HY-2 and buoy data is 0.297 m. A correlation coefficient between these is 0.964. An ordinary least squares （OLS） regression is performed with the buoy data as an independent variable and the altimeter data as a dependent vari- able. The regression equation of hs is hs （HY-2）=0.891 × hs （NDBC）＋0.022. In addition, 2016 collocations are matched with temporal window of 30 rain at the crossing points of HY-2 and Jason-2 orbits. RMS difference of Ku-band SWH between the two data sets is 0.452 m.     

The validation of the significant wave height product of HY-2 altimeter-primary results

The HY-2 satellite was successfully launched on 16 August 2011. The HY-2 significant wave height （SWH） is validated by the data from the South China Sea （SCS） field experiment, National Data Buoy Center （NDBC/ buoys and Jason-1/2 altimeters, and is corrected using a linear regression with in-situ measurements. Com- pared with NDBC SWH, the HY-2 SWH show a RMS of 0.36 m, which is similar to Jason- 1 and Jason-2 SWH with the RMS of 0.35 m and 0.37 m respectively; the RMS of corrected HY-2 SWH is 0.27 m, similar to 0.27 m and 0.23 m of corrected Jason-1 and Jason-2 SWH. Therefore the accuracy of HY-2 SWH products is close to that of Jason-1/2 SWH, and the linear regression function derived can improve the accuracy of HY-2 SWH products.     

基于现场观测数据的HY-2A卫星有效波高校正研究

Significant wave height(SWH) can be computed from the returning waveform of radar altimeter, this parameter is only raw estimates if it does not calibrate. But accurate calibration is important for all applications, especially for climate studies. HY-2a altimeter has been operational since April 2012 and its products are available to the scientific community. In this work, SWH data from HY-2A altimeters are calibrated against in situ buoy data from the National Data Buoy Center(NDBC), Distinguished from previous calibration studies which generally regarded buoy data as "truth", the work of calibration for HY-2A altimeter wave data against in situ buoys was applied a more sophisticated statistical technique—the total least squares(TLS) method which can take into account errors in both variables. We present calibration results for HY-2A radar altimeter measurement of wave height against NDBC buoys. In addition, cross-calibration for HY-2A and Jason-2 wave data are talked over and the result is given.     

Assessment of reprocessed sea surface height measurements derived from HY-2A radar altimeter and its application to the observation of 2015–2016 El Ni?o

Haiyang-2A(HY-2A) is China's first ocean dynamic environment satellite and the radar altimeter is one of its main payloads. One of the main purposes of the radar altimeter is to measure the sea surface height(SSH). The SSH determined from the altimeter range measurements includes some range and geophysical corrections. These corrections largely affect the accuracy of the SSH measurements. The range and the geophysical corrections are reprocessed and the altimeter waveforms in HY-2A sensor interim geophysical data set records(S-IGDR) are retracked from June 1, 2014 to June 14, 2014, and the accuracy of the reprocessed SSH measurements is evaluated.The methods of the range and geophysical corrections used to reprocess HY-2A altimeter data are validated by using these methods to reprocess the Jason-2 range and geophysical corrections and comparing the results with the range and geophysical corrections in Jason-2 geophysical dataset records(GDR) product. A crossover analysis is used to evaluate the accuracy of the reprocessed HY-2A SSH measurements. The standard deviation(STD) of the crossover SSH differences for HY-2A is around 4.53 cm while the STD of the SSH differences between HY-2A and Jason-2 is around 5.22 cm. The performance of the reprocessed HY-2A SSH measurements is significantly improved with respect to the SSH measurements derived from HY-2A interim geophysical dataset records(IGDR)product. The 2015–2016 El Ni?o has been the strongest El Ni?o event since 1997–1998. The range and the geophysical corrections in HY-2A IGDR are reprocessed and sea level anomalies are used to monitor the2015–2016 El Ni?o. The results show that the HY-2A altimeter can well observe the 2015–2016 El Ni?o.     

Preliminary results of the global ocean tide derived from HY-2A radar altimeter data

The HY-2A satellite, which is equipped with a radar altimeter and was launched on August 16, 2011, is the first Chinese marine dynamic environmental monitoring satellite. Extracting ocean tides is one of the important applications of the radar altimeter data. The radar altimeter data of the HY-2A satellite from November 1, 2011 to August 16, 2014 are used herein to extract global ocean tides. The constants representing the tidal constituents are extracted by HY-2A RA data with harmonic analysis ...     

Measurement analyses and evaluations of sea-level heights using the HY-2A satellite's radar altimeter

The HY-2A satellite is China's first independent oceanic dynamic environmental satellite, and has been operating continuously for more than six years. The satellite's radar altimeter, which is one of the main loads on the satellite,has the ability to realize all-weather and all-day observations of global sea-surface heights, as well as significant wave heights and sea-surface wind speeds. These observed data have been widely used in marine disaster prevention and reduction, along with resource development, maritime security and other fields. In order to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the multi-year overall observational performances of the HY-2A satellite's radar altimeter, all of the observational data of the IGDR product from October 26, 2012 to August 27,2017 were selected in this study for a comprehensive evaluation. The height measurement capability of the HY-2A satellite's radar altimeter was evaluated using self-crossover and Jason-2 crossover methods. The height discrepancies at the self-crossover point of the HY-2A satellite's ascending and descending orbits were also calculated. It was found that for the HY-2A satellite's radar altimeter in global waters under the restriction conditions of ascending and descending orbits, the height anomaly differences were within a range of less than 30 cm. The absolute mean error was determined to be 5.81 cm, and the height anomaly standard deviation was 7.76 cm. Under the conditions of the observational areas being limited within a scope of 60° from the Equator, it was determined that the sea-level height anomaly differences were less than 10 cm at the junction of the ascending and descending orbits, the absolute mean error was 3.95 cm. In addition, the sea-level height anomaly standard deviation was observed to be 4.76 cm. Using a mutual cross method with the Jason-2 satellite, it was found that under the conditions of the observational area being within the scope of 66° from the equator, the height anomaly differences at the junction were less than 30 cm, and the absolute mean error of HY-2A and Jason-2 sea level height anomaly was 5.86 cm, with a standard deviation of 7.52 cm. It was observed that, if within the sea area the sea level height anomaly difference was limited to within 10 cm, then the absolute mean error and standard deviation could reach 4.19 cm and 4.98 cm, respectively. It was confirmed that the HY-2A satellite's radar altimeter had successfully reached the height measurement level of similar international altimeters. Therefore, it had the ability to meet the needs of marine scientific research and ocean circulation inversions.     

First six months quality assessment of HY-2A SCAT wind products using in situ measurements

The first Chinese microwave ocean environment satellite HY-2A, carrying a Ku-band scatteromenter （SCAT）, was successfully launched in August 2011. The first quality assessment of HY-2A SCAT wind products is presented through the comparison of the first 6 months operationally released SCAT products with in situ data. The in situ winds from the National Data Buoy Center （NDBC） buoys, R/V Polarstern, Aurora Australis, Roger Revelle and PY30-1 oil platform, were converted to the 10 m equivalent neutral winds. The temporal and spatial differences between the HY-2A SCAT and the in situ observations were limited to less than 5 min and 12.5 km. For HY-2A SCAT wind speed products, the comparison and analysis using the NDBC buoys yield a bias of-0.49 m/s, a root mean square error （RMSE） of 1.3 m/s and an increase negative bias with increasing wind speed observation above 3 m/s. Although less accurate of HY-2A SCAT wind direction at low winds, the RMSE of 19.19° with a bias of 0.92° is found for wind speeds higher than 3 m/s. These results are found consistent with those from R/Vs and oil platform comparisons. Moreover, the NDBC buoy comparison results also suggest that the accuracy of HY-2A SCAT winds is consistent over the first half year of 2012. The encouraging assessment results over the first 6 months show that wind products from HY-2A SCAT will be useful for scientific community.     

一种基于Envisat ASAR波模式数据的有效波高反演算法

The main objective of this paper is to propose a newly developed ocean Significant Wave Height(SWH) retrieval method from Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar(ASAR) imagery. A series of wave mode imagery from January, April and May of 2011 are collocated with ERA-Interim reanalysis SWH data. Based on the matched datasets, a simplified empirical relationship between 22 types of SAR imagery parameters and SWH products is developed with the Genetic Algorithms Partial Least-Squares(GA-PLS) model. Two major features of the backscattering coefficient σ_0 and the frequency parameter S_(10) are chosen as the optimal training feature subset of SWH retrieval by using cross validation. In addition, we also present a comparison of the retrieval results of the simplified empirical relationship with the collocated ERA-Interim data. The results show that the assessment index of the correlation coefficient, the bias, the root-mean-square error of cross validation(RMSECV) and the scattering index(SI) are 0.78, 0.07 m, 0.76 m and 0.5, respectively. In addition, the comparison of the retrieved SWH data between our simplifying model and the Jason-2 radar altimeter data is proposed in our study.Moreover, we also make a comparison of the retrieval of SWH data between our developed model and the wellknown CWAVE_ENV model. The results show that satisfying retrieval results are acquired in the low-moderate sea state, but major bias appears in the high sea state, especially for SWH5 m.     

A preliminary assessment of the sea surface wind speed production of HY-2 scanning microwave radiometer

A scanning microwave radiometer（RM） was launched on August 16,2011,on board HY-2 satellite.The six-month long global sea surface wind speeds observed by the HY-2 scanning microwave radiometer are preliminarily validated using in-situ measurements and WindSat observations,respectively,from January to June 2012.The wind speed root-mean-square（RMS） difference of the comparisons with in-situ data is 1.89 m/s for the measurements of NDBC and 1.72 m/s for the recent four-month data measured by PY30-1 oil platform,respectively.On a global scale,the wind speeds of HY-2 RM are compared with the sea surface wind speeds derived from WindSat,the RMS difference of 1.85 m/s for HY-2 RM collocated observations data set is calculated in the same period as above.With analyzing the global map of a mean difference between HY-2 RM and WindSat,it appears that the bias of the sea surface wind speed is obviously higher in the inshore regions.In the open sea,there is a relatively higher positive bias in the mid-latitude regions due to the overestimation of wind speed observations,while the wind speeds are underestimated in the Southern Ocean by HY-2 RM relative to WindSat observations.     

利用一种改进的算法对中国高分三号同极化SAR图像反演的有效波高的验证

Chinese Gaofen-3(GF-3) is the first civilian satellite to carry C-band(5.3 GHz) synthetic aperture radar(SAR).During the period of August 2016 to December 2017, 1 523 GF-3 SAR images acquired in quad-polarization(vertical-vertical(VV), horizontal-horizontal(HH), vertical-horizontal(VH), and horizontal-vertical(HV)) mode were recorded, mostly around China's seas. In our previous study, the root mean square error(RMSE) of significant wave height(SWH) was found to be around 0.58 m when compared with retrieval results from a few GF-3 SAR images in co-polarization(VV and HH) with moored measurements by using an empirical algorithm CSAR_WAVE. We collected a number of sub-scenes from these 1 523 images in the co-polarization channel,which were collocated with wind and SWH data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts(ECMWF) reanalysis field at a 0.125° grid. Through the collected dataset, an improved empirical wave retrieval algorithm for GF-3 SAR in co-polarization was tuned, herein denoted as CSAR_WAVE2. An additional 92 GF-3 SAR images were implemented in order to validate CSAR_WAVE2 against SWH from altimeter Jason-2, showing an about 0.52 m RMSE of SWH for co-polarization GF-3 SAR. Therefore, we conclude that the proposed empirical algorithm has a good performance for wave retrieval from GF-3 SAR images in co-polarization.     

基于浮标数据的卫星雷达高度计海浪波高数据评价与校正

卫星雷达高度计是海浪有效波高（significant wave height,SWH）观测的重要手段之一,本文利用时空匹配方法对T/P、Jason-1、Envisat、Jason-2、Cryosat-2和HY-2A共6颗卫星雷达高度计SWH数据与NDBC（National Data Buoy Center,NDBC）浮标SWH数据进行对比验证,并对雷达高度计SWH数据进行校正。全部卫星雷达高度计SWH数据时间跨度为1992年9月25日到2015年9月1日,对比验证NDBC浮标共53个,包括7个大洋浮标。精度评价发现除T/P外,各卫星雷达高度计SWH的RMSE都在0.4~0.5 m之间,经过校正后,RMSE都有显著下降,下降程度最大为13.82%;对于大洋浮标,评价结果RMSE在0.20~0.28 m之间,结果明显优于全部NDBC浮标的精度评价结果;HY-2A卫星雷达高度计SWH在经过校正后数据质量与国外其他5颗卫星雷达高度计SWH数据质量差异较小。     

HY-2A卫星高度计有效波高信息提取业务化算法

2011年8月16日我国成功发射了第一颗自主海洋动力环境卫星HY-2A,有效波高是其搭载的雷达高度计可获取的重要海洋动力环境参数之一。本文详细介绍了应用于HY-2A雷达高度计的有效波高信息提取业务化算法,该算法通过迭代最小二乘拟合方法提取有效波高信息。同时,基于HY-2A雷达高度计业务化运行获取的有效波高数据,分别与Jason-2卫星高度计有效波高和NDBC浮标海浪波高数据进行了比对分析。比较结果表明,HY-2A雷达高度计与Jason-2有效波高的标准偏差为-0.26m,RMS为0.58m;HY-2A高度计与NDBC浮标数据间的标准偏差为-0.22m,RMS为0.37m。结果证明了目前应用于HY-2A雷达高度计业务化运行中的有效波高信息提取算法的可行性。     

卫星高度计海面风速的校准与验证

为了改善不同卫星高度计海面风速数据之间的一致性,以浮标数据为基准,对国内的HY-2A和国外的T/P、GFO、Jason-1、Envisat、Jason-2、CryoSat-2共7颗卫星高度计的海面风速数据进行了分析,给出了各个卫星高度计的海面风速校准公式,并对其校准效果进行了验证。验证结果表明:各个卫星高度计的海面风速在经过校准后,与浮标海面风速差异的均值和均方根都有所降低,其中HY-2A最为显著。经过校准后所有卫星高度计的海面风速与浮标海面风速差异的均值都在±0.2m/s以内。除了HY-2A、GFO和Jason-1,其余4颗卫星高度计校准后的海面风速与浮标海面风速差异的均方根都在1.6m/s以下。由此可以得出结论,利用本文的校准公式对各个卫星高度计(特别是HY-2A卫星高度计)的海面风速进行校准,可以有效减少其与浮标海面风速之间的差异。     

复合雷达后向散射模型与合成孔径雷达、散射计和高度计海面雷达后向散射观测的比较分析

海洋微波散射模型相比于以经验统计建立的地球物理模式函数具有不受特定微波频率限制的优势。组合布拉格散射模型和几何光学模型形成了复合雷达后向散射模型。利用南海北部气象浮标2014年海面风速风向实测值作为散射模型输入，分别比较了复合雷达后向散射模型与RADARSAT-2卫星C波段SAR、HY-2A卫星Ku波段微波散射计的海面后向散射系数，偏差分别为(?0.22±1.88) dB (SAR)、(0.33±2.71) dB (散射计VV极化）和(?1.35±2.88) dB (散射计HH极化)；以美国浮标数据中心(NDBC)浮标2011年10月1日至2014年9月30日共3年的海面风速、风向实测值作为散射模型输入，分别比较了复合雷达后向散射模型与Jason-2、HY-2A卫星Ku波段高度计海面后向散射系数，偏差分别为(1.01±1.15) dB和(1.12±1.29) dB。中等入射角和垂直入射下的卫星传感器后向散射系数观测值与复合雷达后向散射模型模拟值比较，具有不同的偏差，但具有相同的海面风速检验精度，均方根误差小于1.71 m/s。结果表明，复合雷达后向散射模型可模拟计算星载SAR、散射计和高度计观测条件下的海面雷达后向散射系数，且与CMOD5、NSCAT-2、高度计业务化海面风速反演的地球物理模式函数的计算结果具有一致性；复合雷达后向散射模型可用于微波遥感器的定标与检验、海面雷达后向散射的模拟。     

Global Statistical Assessment and Cross-Calibration with Jason-2 for Reprocessed HY-2 A Altimeter Data

HY-2 A (Haiyang-2 A) satellite was launched on August 16, 2011 and radar altimeter is one of its main payloads. We reprocessed two years of HY-2 A altimeter sensor geophysical dataset records (SGDR) data. This paper presents the main results in terms of reprocessed HY-2 A altimeter data quality: verification of data availability and validity, monitoring several relevant altimeter parameters, and assessment of the HY-2 A altimeter system performances. A cross-calibration analysis of reprocessed HY-2 A altimeter data with Jason-2 was conducted. The reprocessed HY-2 A altimeter data show good quality and have a low level of noise with respect to Jason-2. The same geophysical correction methods were used to calculate the sea surface height (SSH) for the two missions. The mean standard deviations of the crossover differences for HY-2 A and Jason-2 are 5.24 cm and 5.34 cm, respectively. The mean standard deviation of the crossover differences between HY-2 A and Jason-2 is 5.37 cm. These show that HY-2 A can provide SSH measurements at almost the same level of accuracy as Jason-2. The relative SSH bias between HY-2 A and Jason-2 due to the Ultra Stable Oscillator (USO) drift is obviously observed, and it can affect the calculation of mean sea level and should be further studied and corrected.     

HY-2B卫星载荷联合观测海面阵风的一种反演方法

国内外对海上阵风的研究并不多,且大多集中在阵风预报和应用研究方面,对于海洋阵风数据的获取技术未见文献系统论述。本文利用HY-2B卫星雷达高度计观测的后向散射系数,结合校正微波辐射计观测的亮度温度信息,提出联合反演阵风风速的方法。两个遥感载荷联合反演得到的阵风风速与2019–2021年美国国家浮标数据中心（NDBC）浮标数据进行真实性检验,结果显示:阵风风速均方根误差（RMSE）为0.98 m/s,相关系数为0.82;基于本方法利用国外同类卫星Jason-3得到的阵风风速与2016–2018年NDBC浮标数据的RMSE为0.96 m/s,相关系数为0.88。本文在HY-2B卫星雷达高度计海面风速观测的基础上,纳入同一卫星平台校正微波辐射计的同步观测信息联合实现了海面阵风的观测,数据的比对结果证明文中方法具有较高的观测精度。同时,该方法对于具有相同观测体制的国内外卫星也适用。