X-band low-grazing-angle ocean backscatter obtained during LOGAN1993

This paper reviews X-band ocean microwave backscatter data from the LOGAN (LOw Grazing ANgle) experiment conducted on the Chesapeake Light Tower by the Naval Air Warfare Center. The data were collected under varied wind, sea, and swell conditions that provide some new insights into low-grazing-angle backscatter phenomena. Transient backscatter peaks called “sea spikes” have long been associated with deep-water breaking waves; however, they have yet to be fully reconciled with backscatter and hydrodynamic theories. New analysis techniques have been applied to the LOGAN data that take advantage of the unique characteristics of sea spikes and their dynamics. High-resolution Doppler spectra are organized relative to the space-time centroids of the sea-spike clusters and conditionally averaged by RCS strength. The mean Doppler variation of the strongest sea spikes then map the breaking-wave structure just as Doppler histories measured at moderate grazing angles map the dynamics of the dominant linear surface-wave components. While breaking waves are manifest to some degree in backscatter data at all grazing angles, a non-Bragg-scatter mechanism accentuates the crest scattering at low grazing angles. The phenomena potentially can be exploited for remote ocean sensing and imaging     

基于海面多普勒谱模型的海浪反演精度分析

Microwave remote sensing is one of the most useful methods for observing the ocean parameters. The Doppler frequency or interferometric phase of the radar echoes can be used for an ocean surface current speed retrieval,which is widely used in spaceborne and airborne radars. While the effect of the ocean currents and waves is interactional. It is impossible to retrieve the ocean surface current speed from Doppler frequency shift directly. In order to study the relationship between the ocean surface current speed and the Doppler frequency shift, a numerical ocean surface Doppler spectrum model is established and validated with a reference. The input parameters of ocean Doppler spectrum include an ocean wave elevation model, a directional distribution function, and wind speed and direction. The suitable ocean wave elevation spectrum and the directional distribution function are selected by comparing the ocean Doppler spectrum in C band with an empirical geophysical model function(CDOP). What is more, the error sensitivities of ocean surface current speed to the wind speed and direction are analyzed. All these simulations are in Ku band. The simulation results show that the ocean surface current speed error is sensitive to the wind speed and direction errors. With VV polarization, the ocean surface current speed error is about 0.15 m/s when the wind speed error is 2 m/s, and the ocean surface current speed error is smaller than 0.3 m/s when the wind direction error is within 20° in the cross wind direction.     

Mapping wind by the first-order Bragg scattering of broad-beam high-frequency radar

Mapping wind with high-frequency(HF) radar is still a challenge. The existing second-order spectrum based wind speed extraction method has the problems of short detection distances and low angular resolution for broad-beam HF radar. To solve these problems, we turn to the first-order Bragg spectrum power and propose a space recursion method to map surface wind. One month of radar and buoy data are processed to build a wind spreading function model and a first-order spectrum power model describing the relationship between the maximum of first-order spectrum power and wind speed in different sea states. Based on the theoretical propagation attenuation model, the propagation attenuation is calculated approximately by the wind speed in the previous range cell to compensate for the first-order spectrum in the current range-azimuth cell. By using the compensated first-order spectrum, the final wind speed is extracted in each cell. The first-order spectrum and wind spreading function models are tested using one month of buoy data, which illustrates the applicability of the two models. The final wind vector map demonstrates the potential of the method.     

Detection of nonlinear waves and their contribution to ocean wave spectra Part I: Theoretical consideration

This is a Part I of a paper of nonlinearities of wind waves in the deep open ocean. First, considerations are given in order to verify the theoretical expression for bound waves from observed data. We compare the contribution of bound waves and double Bragg scattering to the second-order scattering, and we show that the contribution of bound waves is larger, and that bound waves can be detected by measuring the Doppler spectra of HF (high-frequency) radio wave scattering from the sea surface. Moreover, if the theory of the HF radio wave scattering from the sea surface is verified, so is the second-order perturbation theory for bound waves. Then, the contributions of bound waves to ocean wave spectra are investigated on the basis of the nonlinear theory. The bound waves are shown to modify frequency spectra and wave directional distributions at higher frequencies, and it is shown that although the modifications of frequency spectra are smaller for a two-dimensional field case than for a one-dimensional field case, they are not negligible at higher frequencies. On the other hand, the modifications of wave directional distributions are shown to be significant at higher frequencies. These discussions become significant only when bound wave predictions are verified in the open ocean. Consequently, it is shown that nonlinearities of water waves are important in considering both radio wave scattering from the sea surface and the detailed structures of ocean wave spectra at high frequencies.     

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。     

Line broadening on HF ocean surface radar backscatter spectra

Experimental results from an array of moored current meters and an HF ocean surface radar support the idea that line broadening on the radar spectra is caused by the velocity distribution within the radar target cell. The experiment was done in the wake of a small island where the velocity variations were severe. An estimate is made of the line broadening which can be expected. In a turbulent flow with dissipation rate of the orderepsilon sim 10^{-10}m^{2}s^{-3}and target cell size 1 3000 m, the line broadening isDeltaf sim 10^{-3}Hz. This would be resolved with a radar time series ofsim 20min and indicates that the HF ocean surface radar technique has potential in the observation of surface velocity distributions.     

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.     

The wind-speed measurement capability of spaceborne radar altimeters

This study represents an attempt to quantitatively assess the capability of a spaceborne radar altimeter to infer ocean surface wind speeds from a measurement of the backscattered power at vertical incidence. The study uses data acquired during 184 near overflights of NOAA data buoys with the GEOS-3 satellite radar altimeter and encompasses a wind-speed range from less than 1 to 18 m/s. An algorithm is derived from the data comparison for converting measurements of the normalized scattering cross section of the ocean surface at 13.9 GHz into estimates of the surface wind speed at the standard anemometer height of 10 m. The algorithm is straightforward and potentially useful for on-board processing of raw altimeter data for the purpose of providing real-time estimates of surface wind speed. For winds in the range of 1 to 18 m/s, the mean difference between the altimeter-inferred winds and the buoy measurements is negligible while the standard deviation of the difference is 1.74 m/s.     

便携式高频地波雷达台湾海峡浪高观测

As an important equipment for sea state remote sensing, high frequency surface wave radar(HFSWR) has received more and more attention. The conventional method for wave height inversion is based on the ratio of the integration of the second-order spectral continuum to that of the first-order region, where the strong external noise and the incorrect delineation of the first- and second-order Doppler spectral regions due to spectral aliasing are two major sources of errors in the wave height. To account for these factors, two more indices are introduced to the wave height estimation, i.e., the ratio of the maximum power of the second-order continuum to that of the Bragg spectral region(RSCB) and the ratio of the power of the second harmonic peak to that of the Bragg peak(RSHB). Both indices also have a strong correlation with the underlying wave height. On the basis of all these indices an empirical model is proposed to estimate the wave height. This method has been used in a three-months long experiment of the ocean state measuring and analyzing radar, type S(OSMAR-S), which is a portable HFSWR with compact cross-loop/monopole receive antennas developed by Wuhan University since 2006. During the experiment in the Taiwan Strait, the significant wave height varied from 0 to 5 m. The significant wave heights estimated by the OSMAR-S correlate well with the data provided by the Oceanweather Inc. for comparison, with a correlation coefficient of 0.74 and a root mean square error(RMSE) of 0.77 m. The proposed method has made an effective improvement to the wave height estimation and thus a further step toward operational use of the OSMAR-S in the wave height extraction.     

A three-frequency scatterometer technique for the measurement ofocean wave spectra

A microwave technique for the measurement of ocean wave spectra has been compared with wave gauge output during extensive field testing. The method is based on the dual-frequency technique for detecting long ocean waves by matching the modulation of short waves with the beat wavelength between two transmitted microwave frequencies. The new method, however, utilizes three microwave frequencies in order to reduce mean backscatter not related to short-wave modulation. Two prototype scatterometers have been built using three frequencies at L-band and at K_u-band. Wave spectra have been measured by both radar systems which, when properly normalized, agree well with simultaneous in situ measurements taken by conventional wave gauges at the pier site. Thirteen sets of spectra have been computed, five of which correspond to a situation in which a local wind sea was generated and then decayed. The present experiment does not demonstrate the directionality of this new technique     

基于浮标实测数据的WindSat海洋反演产品精度分析

To evaluate the ocean surface wind vector and the sea surface temperature obtained from Wind Sat, we compare these quantities over the time period from January 2004 to December 2013 with moored buoy measurements. The mean bias between the Wind Sat wind speed and the buoy wind speed is low for the low frequency wind speed product(WSPD_LF), ranging from –0.07 to 0.08 m/s in different selected areas. The overall RMS error is 0.98 m/s for WSPD_LF, ranging from 0.82 to 1.16 m/s in different selected regions. The wind speed retrieval result in the tropical Ocean is better than that of the coastal and offshore waters of the United States. In addition, the wind speed retrieval accuracy of WSPD_LF is better than that of the medium frequency wind speed product. The crosstalk analysis indicates that the Wind Sat wind speed retrieval contains some cross influences from the other geophysical parameters, such as sea surface temperature, water vapor and cloud liquid water. The mean bias between the Wind Sat wind direction and the buoy wind direction ranges from –0.46° to 1.19° in different selected regions. The overall RMS error is 19.59° when the wind speed is greater than 6 m/s. Measurements of the tropical ocean region have a better accuracy than those of the US west and east coasts. Very good agreement is obtained between sea surface temperatures of Wind Sat and buoy measurements in the tropical Pacific Ocean; the overall RMS error is only 0.36°C, and the retrieval accuracy of the low latitudes is better than that of the middle and high latitudes.     

Wind speed inversion and in-orbit assessment of the imaging altimeter on Tiangong-2 space station

Imaging altimeter (IALT) is a new type of radar altimeter system. In contrast to the conventional nadir-looking altimeters, such as HY-2A altimeter, Jason-1/2, and TOPEX/Poseidon, IALT observes the earth surface at low incident angles (2.5°–8°), so its swath is much wider and its spatial resolution is much higher than the previous altimeters. This paper presents a wind speed inversion method for the recently launched IALT onboard Tiangong-2 space station. Since the current calibration results of IALT do not agree well with the well-known wind geophysical model function at low incidence angles, a neural network is used to retrieve the ocean surface wind speed in this study. The wind speed inversion accuracy is evaluated by comparing with the ECMWF reanalysis wind speed, buoy wind speed, and in-situ ship measurements. The results show that the retrieved wind speed bias is about –0.21 m/s, and the root-mean-square (RMS) error is about 1.85 m/s. The wind speed accuracy of IALT meets the performance requirement.     

Parametric estimation of ocean surface currents with HF radar

Ocean surface currents can be estimated, over a large coastal area, by utilizing the backscatter of high frequency (HF) radar waves from ocean gravity waves. Although the overall backscatter mechanism is complicated, the surface current information is contained within the spectral characteristics of two dominant Bragg components. The accuracy of the current estimate, following the usual FFT-based spectral estimate, is limited by the frequency resolution of the FFT and the time-varying characteristics of the Bragg components. This paper describes a high resolution parametric estimation of the ocean currents based on a recently proposed technique for analyzing time-varying signals. This technique, together with a time-domain ocean clutter model, allows all the Bragg signal information to be extracted from the two dominant eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a matrix constructed from the radar data. Using signals from an operational coastal surveillance radar, current estimates made using this technique are compared with those estimated by the conventional FFT-based method     

Detection of nonlinear waves and their contribution to ocean wave spectra Part II: Observation

This is a Part II of a paper of nonlinearities of wind waves in the deep open ocean. As shown in Part I, bound waves in deep sea are detectable by extracting secondorder Doppler spectra from the Doppler spectra of HF (high-frequency) radio waves scattered from the sea surface. There is a remarkable agreement between the calculated and measured Doppler spectra, considering the noise levels in measured Doppler spectra and the uncertainties in directional properties. The theoretical expression for bound waves is thus verified. Furthermore, the upper limit in calculating the Doppler spectra for the second-order approximation is presented from field observations, although we cannot conclude that it is equivalent to the limitation of the second-order bound wave theory. It is shown that analysis of radio wave scattering by the sea surface is one useful means of understanding the nonlinear properties of ocean waves.     

Evaluation of ENVISAT ASAR data for sea surface wind retrieval in Hong Kong coastal waters of China

The C-band wind speed retrieval models, CMOD4, CMOD - IFR2, and CMOD5 were applied to retrieval of sea surface wind speeds from ENVISAT （European environmental satellite） ASAR （advanced synthetic aperture radar） data in the coastal waters near Hong Kong during a period from October 2005 to July 2007. The retrieved wind speeds are evaluated by comparing with buoy measurements and the QuikSCAT （quick scatterometer） wind products. The results show that the CMOD4 model gives the best performance at wind speeds lower than 15 m/s. The correlation coefficients with buoy and QuikSCAT winds are 0.781 and 0.896, respectively. The root mean square errors are the same 1.74 m/s. Namely, the CMOD4 model is the best one for sea surface wind speed retrieval from ASAR data in the coastal waters near Hong Kong.     

利用高频雷达海面回波中奇异峰估计浪高的方法

The popular methods to estimate wave height with high-frequency(HF) radar depend on the integration over the second-order spectral region and thus may come under from even not strong external interference. To improve the accuracy and increase the valid detection range of the wave height measurement, particularly by the smallaperture radar, it is turned to singular peaks which often exceed the power of other frequency components. The power of three kinds of singular peaks, i.e., those around ±1,±2~(1/2) and ±1(2~(1/2)) times the Bragg frequency, are retrieved from a one-month-long radar data set collected by an ocean state monitoring and analyzing radar,model S(OSMAR-S), and in situ buoy records are used to make some comparisons. The power response to a wave height is found to be described with a new model quite well, by which obvious improvement on the wave height estimation is achieved. With the buoy measurements as reference, a correlation coefficient is increased to 0.90 and a root mean square error(RMSE) is decreased to 0.35 m at the range of 7.5 km compared with the results by the second-order method. The further analysis of the fitting performance across range suggests that the peak has the best fit and maintains a good performance as far as 40 km. The correlation coefficient is 0.78 and the RMSE is 0.62 m at 40 km. These results show the effectiveness of the new empirical method, which opens a new way for the wave height estimation with the HF radar.     

HY-2B卫星散射计海面风场产品质量分析 *

星载微波散射计是获取全球海面风场信息的主要手段, HY-2B卫星散射计的成功发射为全球海面风场数据获取的持续性提供了重要保障。本文利用欧洲中期天气预报中心(European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, ECMWF)再分析风场数据、热带大气海洋观测计划(Tropical Atmosphere Ocean Array, TAO)和美国国家数据浮标中心(National Data Buoy Center, NDBC)浮标获取的海面风矢量实测数据, 对HY-2B散射计海面风场数据产品的质量进行统计分析。分析表明, HY-2B风场与ECMWF再分析风场对比, 在4~24m·s^-1风速区间内, 风速和风向均方根误差(root mean square error, RMSE)分别为1.58m·s^-1和15.34°; 与位于开阔海域的TAO浮标数据对比, 风速、风向RMSE分别为1.03m·s^-1和14.98°, 可见HY-2B风场能较好地满足业务化应用的精度要求(风速优于2m·s^-1, 风向优于20°)。与主要位于近海海域的NDBC浮标对比, HY-2B风场的风速、风向RMSE分别为1.60m·s^-1和19.14°, 说明HY-2B散射计同时具备了对近海海域风场的良好观测能力。本文还发现HY-2B风场质量会随风速、地面交轨位置等变化, 为用户更好地使用HY-2B风场产品提供参考。     

基于SAR多普勒质心频移的海面流场迭代反演算法

为了克服SAR多普勒质心频移法反演海面流场时风场贡献去除困难的难题,本文提出了基于M4S模型的弦截下山法,利用其迭代计算局部区域的海面流场;然后估算整幅SAR图像中风场对多普勒速度的风贡献因子7;最后去除风场对多普勒速度的贡献.将该算法用于Radarsat-2数据反演海面径向流速,并利用匹配的实测数据验证反演精度.研究...     

Ship detection with high-resolution HF skywave radar

This paper presents an overview of ship detection by high-frequency (HF) skywave backscatter over-the-horizon radar (OTHR). Ships have been detected at ranges of 2000 km or more by OTHR that uses sufficient resolution in the radar spatial and Doppler frequency domains. The HF sea-echo Doppler spectrum limits the target signal-to-clutter ratio (SCR), as a function of the ocean wave-height distribution, wind direction, radio frequency, and ship target radial velocity. Maximum sea-clutter spectrum purity, and hence larger SCR, is achieved with the use of stable single-mode ionospheric propagation. Real-time measurement and interpretation of ionospheric propagation features therefore must guide the choice of OTHR operating frequency. Experimental data recorded at the ONR/SR1 Wide Aperture Research Facility (WARF) bistatic OTHR in central California demonstrate reliable ship detection in the Northeast Pacific Ocean. WARF transmits 1-MW average effective radiated power, using a linear frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) waveform, and receives with a 2.55-km broadside array of vertical monopole element pairs. Swept bandwidths as high as 200 kHz have been used. Sufficient spectral resolution is achieved with a coherent integration time (CIT) of 12.8 s. Longer CIT, and autoregressive (AR) spectral analysis techniques such as Marple's algorithm, have been used to improve Doppler resolution.     

基于人工神经网络的高频雷达风速反演

风速是重要的海洋状态参数之一，对海面风速的准确提取是实现海洋环境监测和沿海工程应用的重要保证。目前，作为新兴海洋环境监测设备，高频雷达在风速提取方面仍然存在挑战。本文提出了一种基于人工神经网络的风速提取方法，利用历史浮标测量海态数据训练风速提取网络，实现风速与有效波高、波周期、风向及时间因素之间的非线性映射。测试结果表明了这一网络在时间和空间上的稳定性；进而将已训练的网络应用到便携式高频地波雷达OSMAR-S的风速反演中，得到的风速与浮标测量风速间的相关系数达到0.849，均方根误差为2.11 m/s。这一结果明显优于常规由浪高反演风速的SMB方法，验证了该方法在高频雷达风速反演中的可行性。