Airborne test flight of HY-2A satellite microwave scatterometer and data analysis

This paper introduces the background, aim, experimental design, configuration and data processing for an airborne test flight of the HY-2 Microwave scatterometer (HSCAT). The aim was to evaluate HSCAT performance and a developed data processing algorithm for the HSCAT before launch. There were three test flights of the scatterometer, on January 15, 18 and 22, 2010, over the South China Sea near Lingshui, Hainan. The test flights successfully generated simultaneous airborne scatterometer normalized radar cross section (NRCS), ASCAT wind, and ship-borne-measured wind datasets, which were used to analyze HSCAT performance. Azimuthal dependence of the NRCS relative to the wind direction was nearly cos(2w), with NRCS minima at crosswind directions, and maxima near upwind and downwind. The NRCS also showed a small difference between upwind and downwind directions, with upwind crosssections generally larger than those downwind. The dependence of airborne scatterometer NRCS on wind direction and speed showed favorable consistency with the NASA scatterometer geophysical model function (NSCAT GMF), indicating satisfactory HSCAT performance.     

A method for sea surface wind field retrieval from SAR image mode data

To retrieve wind field from SAR images, the development for surface wind field retrieval from SAR images based on the improvement of new inversion model is present. Geophysical Model Functions(GMFs) have been widely applied for wind field retrieval from SAR images. Among them CMOD4 has a good performance under low and moderate wind conditions. Although CMOD5 is developed recently with a more fundamental basis, it has ambiguity of wind speed and a shape gradient of normalized radar cross section under low wind speed condition. This study proposes a method of wind field retrieval from SAR image by combining CMOD5 and CMOD4 Five VV-polarisation RADARSAT2 SAR images are implemented for validation and the retrieval results by a combination method(CMOD5 and CMOD4) together with CMOD4 GMF are compared with QuikSCAT wind data. The root-mean-square error(RMSE) of wind speed is 0.75 m s-1 with correlation coefficient 0.84 using the combination method and the RMSE of wind speed is 1.01 m s-1 with correlation coefficient 0.72 using CMOD4 GMF alone for those cases. The proposed method can be applied to SAR image for avoiding the internal defect in CMOD5 under low wind speed condition.     

Evaluation of Wind Retrieval from Co-Polarization Gaofen-3 SAR Imagery Around China Seas

Gaofen-3(GF-3) is the first Chinese space-borne satellite to carry the C-band multi-polarization synthetic aperture radar(SAR). Marine applications, i.e., winds and waves retrieved from GF-3 SAR images, have been operational since January 2017. In this study, we have collected more than 1000 quad-polarization(vertical-vertical(VV); horizontal-horizontal(HH); vertical-horizontal(VH); horizontal-vertical(HV)) GF-3 SAR images, which were acquired around the China Seas from September 2016 to September 2017. Wind streaks were visible in these images in co-polarization(VV and HH) channel. Geophysical model functions(GMFs), including the CMOD5N together with polarization ratio(PR) model and C-SARMOD, were used to retrieve winds from the collected co-polarization GF-3 SAR images. Wind directions were directly obtained from GF-3 SAR images. Then, the SAR-derived wind speeds were compared with the measurements at a 0.25? grid from the Advanced Scatterometer on board the Metop-A/B and microwave radiometer WindSAT. Based on the analysis, empirical corrections are proposed to improve the performance of the two GMFs. Results of this study show that the standard deviation of wind speed is 1.63 m s~(-1) with a 0.19 m s~(-1) bias and 1.71 m s~(-1) with a 0.26 m s~(-1) bias for VV-and HH-polarization GF-3 SAR, respectively. Our work not only systematically evaluates wind retrieval by using the two advanced GMFs and PR models but also proposes empirical corrections to improve the accuracy of wind retrievals from GF-3 SAR images around the China Seas and thus enhance the accuracy of near real-time operational SAR-derived wind products.     

Comparison of two wind algorithms of ENVISAT ASAR at high wind

Two wind algorithms of ENVISAT advanced synthetic aperture radar (ASAR), i. e. CMOD4 model from the European Space Agency (ESA) and CMOD IFR2 model from Quilfen et al., are compared in this paper. The wind direction is estimated from orientation of low and linear signatures in the ASAR imagery. The wind direction has inherently a 180° ambiguity since only a single ASAR image is used. The 180° ambiguity is eliminated by using the buoy data from the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) buoys moored in the Pacific. Wind speed is obtained with the two wind algorithms using both estimated wind direction and normalized radar cross section (NRCS). The retrieved wind results agree well with the data from Quikscat. The root mean square error (RMSE) of wind direction is 2.80? The RMSEs of wind speed from CMOD4 model and CMOD_IFR2 model are 1.09 m/s and 0.60 m/s, respectively. The results indicate that the CMOD_IFR2 model is slight better than CMOD4 model at high wind.     

Retrieval of Significant Wave Height Under Typhoon Conditions from Gaofen-3 SAR Imagery

The objective of this paper is to propose an empirical method to inverse significant wave height(SWH)under typhoon conditions from collected dual-polarization Gaofen(GF)-3 synthetic aperture radar(SAR)imagery.The typhoon scenes were cap-tured from narrow scan(NSC)and wide scan(WSC)images,and collocated with European Center for Medium-Range Weather Fore-casts reanalysis data of(ECMWF).To improve the quality of GF-3 SAR images,the recalibration over rainforest and de-scalloping were carried out.To establish the empirical relationship between SAR-derived parameters and collocated SWH,the sensitivity analysis of typical parameters about the normalized radar cross section(Nrcs)and imagery variance(Cvar)were performed to both VV and VH polarized images.Four scenes from GF-3 SAR imagery under typhoon conditions were used for training the model by the multivari-ate least square regression,and one scene was used for preliminary validation.It was found that the joint retrieval model based on VV and VH polarized SAR imagery performed better than any single polarized model.These results,verified by using ECMWF data,revealed the soundness of this approach,with a correlation of 0.95,bias of 0 m,RMSE of 0.44 and SI of 0.01 when VV polarization and VH polarization data were both used.     

A physics-based dual-frequency approach for altimeter wind speed retrieval

The altimeter normalized radar cross section(NRCS) has been used to retrieve the sea surface wind speed for decades, and more than a dozen of wind speed retrieval algorithms have been proposed. Despite the continuing efforts to improve the wind speed measurements, a bias dependence on wave state persists in all wind algorithms. On the basis of recent evidence that short waves are essentially modulated by local winds and much less affected by wave state, we proposed a physics-based approach to retrieve the wind speed from the dual-frequency difference in terms of the mean square slope of short waves. A collocated dataset of coincident altimeter/buoy measurements were used to develop and validate the approach. Validation against buoy measurements indicates that the approach is almost unbiased and has an overall root mean square error of 1.24 m s-1, which is 5.3% lower than the single-parameter algorithm in operational use(Witter and Chelton, 1991) and 2.4% lower than another dual-frequency approach(Chen et al., 2002). Furthermore, the results indicate that the new approach significantly improves the wave-dependent bias compared to the single-parameter algorithm. The capacity of altimeter to retrieve sea surface wind speed appears to be limited for the case of winds below 3 m s-1. The validity of the approach at high winds needs to be further examined in the future study.     

A new algorithm for sea-surface wind-speed retrieval based on the L-band radiometer onboard Aquarius

Aquarius is the second satellite mission to focus on the remote sensing of sea-surface salinity from space and it has mapped global sea-surface salinity for nearly 3 years since its launch in 2011. However,benefiting from the high atmospheric transparency and moderate sensitivity to wind speed of the L-band brightness temperature(TB),the Aquarius L-band radiometer can actually provide a new technique for the remote sensing of wind speed. In this article,the sea-surface wind speeds derived from TBs measured by Aquarius' L-band radiometer are presented,the algorithm for which is developed and validated using multisource wind speed data,including Wind Sat microwave radiometer and National Data Buoy Center buoy data,and the Hurricane Research Division of the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory wind field product. The error analysis indicates that the performance of retrieval algorithm is good. The RMSE of the Aquarius wind-speed algorithm is about 1 and 1.5 m/s for global oceans and areas of tropical hurricanes,respectively. Consequently,the applicability of using the Aquarius L-band radiometer as a near all-weather wind-speed measuring method is verified.     

Retrieval algorithm of sea surface wind vectors for WindSat based on a simple forward model

WindSat/Coriolis is the first satellite-borne polarimetric microwave radiometer, which aims to improve the potential of polarimetric microwave radiometry for measuring sea surface wind vectors from space. In this paper, a wind vector retrieval algorithm based on a novel and simple forward model was developed for WindSat. The retrieval algorithm of sea surface wind speed was developed using multiple linear regression based on the simulation dataset of the novel forward model. Sea surface wind directions that minimize the difference between simulated and measured values of the third and fourth Stokes parameters were found using maximum likelihood estimation, by which a group of ambiguous wind directions was obtained. A median filter was then used to remove ambiguity of wind direction. Evaluated with sea surface wind speed and direction data from the U.S. National Data Buoy Center (NDBC), root mean square errors are 1.2 m/s and 30° for retrieved wind speed and wind direction, respectively. The evaluation results suggest that the simple forward model and the retrieval algorithm are practicable for near-real time applications, without reducing accuracy.     

Rapid detection to long ship wake in synthetic aperture radar satellite imagery

The maritime administrative department employs synthetic aperture radar(SAR)satellite remote sensing technology to obtain evidence of illegal discharge of ships.If the ship is discharged during navigation,it forms a long dark wake on the SAR image due to the suppression of the Bragg wave by the oil film.This study investigates key techniques for rapid detection of long ship wakes,thereby providing law enforcement agencies with candidate ships for possible discharge.This paper presents a rapid long ship wake detection method that uses satellite imaging parameters and the axial direction of the ship in images to determine the potential detection area of the wake.Then,the threshold of long ship wake detection is determined using statistical analysis,the area is binarized,and isolated points are removed using a morphological filter operator.The method was tested with ENVISAT Synthetic Aperture Radar and GF-3 SAR data,and results showed that the method was effective,and the overall accuracy of the decision reaches 71%.We present two innovations;one is a method that draws a Doppler shift curve,and uses the SAR imaging parameters to determine the detection area of the long wake to achieve rapid detection and reduce the image detection area.The other is where a classical linear fitting method is used to quickly and accurately determine whether the detected dark area is a long ship wake and realizes the twisted long ship wake detection caused by the sea surface flow field,which is otherwise difficult to detect by the traditional Radon and Hough transform methods.This method has good suppression performance for the dark spot false alarm formed by low speed wind region or upward flow.The method is developed for maritime ship monitoring system and will promote the operational application of maritime ship monitoring system.     

Deriving Changjiang coastal zone wind from C-band SAR and its application to salinity simulation

Wind plays an important role in hydrodynamic processes such as the expansion of Changjiang （Yangtze） River Diluted Water （CDW）, and shelf circulation in the Changjiang estuary. Thus, it is essential to include wind in the numerical simulation of these phenomena. Synthetic aperture radar （SAR） with high resolution and wide spatial coverage is valuable for measuring spatially inhomogeneous ocean surface wind fields. We have collected 87 ERS-2 SAR images with wind-induced streaks that cover the Cbangjiang coastal area, to verify and improve the validity of wind direction retrieval using the 2D fast Fourier transform method. We then used these wind directions as inputs to derive SAR wind speeds using the C-band model. To demonstrate the applicability of the algorithms, we validated the SAR-retrieved wind fields using QuikSCAT measurements and the atmospheric Weather Research Forecasting model. In general, we found good agreement between the datasets, indicating the reliability and applicability of SAR- retrieved algorithms under different atmospheric conditions. We investigated the main error sources of this process, and conducted sensitivity analyses to estimate the wind speed errors caused by the effect of speckle, uncertainties in wind direction, and inaccuracies in the normalized radar cross section. Finally, we used the SAR-retrieved wind fields to simulate the salinity distribution off the Changjiang estuary. The findings of this study will be valuable for wind resource assessment and the development of future numerical ocean models based on SAR images.     

Parameterized first-guess spectrum method for retrieving directional spectrum of swell-dominated waves and huge waves from SAR images

A method to retrieve ocean wave spectra from SAR images, named Parameterized First-guess Spectrum Method (PFSM), was proposed after interpretation of the theory to ocean wave imaging and analysis of the drawbacks of the retrieving model generally used. In this method, with additional information and satellite parameters, the separating wave-number is first calculated to determine the maximum wave-number beyond which the linear relation can be used. The separating wave-number can be calculated using the additional information on wind velocity and parameters of SAR satellite. And then the SAR spectrum can be divided into SAR spectrum of wind wave and of swell according to the result of separating wave-number. The portion of SAR spectrum generated by wind wave, is used to search for the most suitable parameters of ocean wind wave spectrum, including propagation direction of ocean wave, phase speed of dominating wave and the angle spreading coefficient. The swell spectrum is acquired by directly inversing the linear relation of ocean wave spectrum to SAR spectrum given the portion of SAR spectrum generated by swell. We used the proposed method to retrieve the ocean wave spectrum from ERS-SAR data from the South China Sea and compared the result with altimeter data. The agreement indicates that the PFSM is reliable.     

基于GF-3和Landsat 8遥感数据的土壤水分反演研究

基于我国首颗全极化雷达卫星高分三号（GF-3）和Landsat8数据,研究浓密植被覆盖地表土壤水分反演方法。为了提高浓密植被覆盖地表土壤水分反演精度,首先利用PROSAIL模型、实测植被参数及Landsat8光学数据分析了8种植被指数与植被冠层含水量的相关性,从中优选出归一化差异水指数（NDWI₅）用于反演植被冠层含水量,并通过分析植被含水量和植被冠层含水量的关系,构建植被含水量模型;然后结合植被含水量反演模型和简化MIMICS模型校正了植被对雷达后向散射系数的影响,最后基于AIEM建立裸土后向散射系数模拟数据集,发展一种主动微波和光学数据协同反演浓密植被覆盖地表土壤水分模型,并以山东省禹城市为研究区,实现了玉米覆盖下HH、VV和HH+VV 3种模式土壤水分反演。实验结果表明： ① NDWI₅为最佳植被指数,对于去除植被影响有较好效果;② 基于此方法,利用GF-3和Landsat8卫星数据反演得到的土壤水分具有较高的精度;③ 相比HH和VV两种极化模式,HH+VV双通道模式对土壤水分反演结果更好,决定系数（R2）为0.4037,均方根误差（RMSE）为0.0667 m ³m ^-3。     

Underwater topography detection of Taiwan Shoal with SAR images

Under suitable conditions of tidal current and wind, underwater topography can be detected by synthetic aperture radar (SAR) indirectly. Underwater topography SAR imaging includes three physical processes: radar ocean surface backscattering, the modulation of sea surface short wave spectrum by the variations in sea surface currents, and the modulation of sea surface currents by the underwater topography. The first process is described usually by Bragg scattering theory because the incident angle of SAR is always between 20°–70°. The second process is described by the action balance equation. The third process is described by an ocean hydrodynamic model. Based on the SAR imaging mechanism for underwater topography, an underwater topography SAR detection model and a simplified method for its calculation are introduced. In the detection model, a two-dimensional hydrodynamic model — the shallow water model is used to describe the motion of tidal current. Due to the difficulty of determining the expression of SAR backscattering cross section in which some terms can not be determined, the backscattering cross section of SAR image used in the underwater topography SAR detection is pro-processed by the simulated SAR image of the coarse-grid water depth to simplify the calculation. Taiwan Shoal, located at the southwest outlet of Taiwan Strait, is selected as an evaluation area for this technique due to the occurrence of hundreds of sand waves. The underwater topography of Taiwan Shoal was detected by two scenes of ERS-2 SAR images which were acquired on 9 January 2000 and 6 June 2004. The detection results are compared with in situ measured water depths for three profiles. The average absolute and relative errors of the best detection result are 2.23 m and 7.5 %, respectively. These show that the detection model and the simplified method introduced in the paper is feasible.     

Monitoring cyanobacteria-dominant algal blooms in eutrophicated Taihu Lake in China with synthetic aperture radar images

Monitoring algal blooms by optical remote sensing is limited by cloud cover.In this study,synthetic aperture radar(SAR) was deployed with the aim of monitoring cyanobacteria-dominant algal blooms in Taihu Lake in cloudy weather.The study shows that dark regions in the SAR images caused by cyanobacterial blooms damped the microwave backscatter of the lake surface and were consistent with the regions of algal blooms in quasi-synchronous optical images,confirming the applicability of SAR for detection of surface blooms.Low backscatter may also be associated with other factors such as low wind speeds,resulting in interference when monitoring algal blooms using SAR data alone.After feature extraction and selection,the dark regions were classified by the support vector machine method with an overall accuracy of 67.74%.SAR can provide a reference point for monitoring cyanobacterial blooms in the lake,particularly when weather is not suitable for optical remote sensing.Multi-polarization and multi-band SAR can be considered for use in the future to obtain more accurate information regarding algal blooms from SAR data.     

Interannual variability of SST,SLA and wind waves in the Hawaii area and their responses to ENSO

Time series of sea surface temperature (SST),wind speed and significant wave height (SWH) from meteorologicalbuoys of the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) are useful for studying the interannual variability and trend of these quantities at the buoy areas.The measurements from 4 buoys (B51001,B51002,B51003 and B51004) in the Hawaii area are used to study theresponses of the quantities to EI Nino and Southern Oscillation (ENSO).Long-term averages of these data reflect precise seasonaland climatological characteristics of SST,wind speed and SWH around the Hawaii area.Buoy observations from B51001 suggest asignificant warming trend which is,however,not very clear from the other three buoys.Compared with the variability of SST andSWH,the wind speeds from the buoy observations show an increasing trend.The impacts of El Nifio on SST and wind waves arealso shown.Sea level data observed by altimeter during October 1992 to September 2006 are analyzed to investigate the variabilityof sea level in the Hawaii area.The results also show an increasing trend in sea level anomaly (SLA).The low-passed SLA in theHawaii area is consistent with the inverse phase of the low-passed Sol (Southern Oscillation Index).Compared with the low-passedSOl and PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation),the low-passed PNA (Pacific-North America Index) has a better correlation with thelow-passed SLA in the Hawaii area.     

基于SVR的旱区稀疏植被覆盖下土壤水分遥感反演

中国西北半干旱区降水稀少、蒸散强烈,土壤水分作为重要的生态因子,影响着土壤-大气界面的能量平衡。支持向量回归模型具有估算精度高、可处理非线性问题、泛化能力强等优点,近年来被应用于土壤水分反演研究中,但已有模型极少考虑地表粗糙度因素的影响,导致反演精度受到一定限制。因此,本文以内蒙古乌审旗为研究区,采用水云模型去除地表稀疏植被覆盖的影响,提取全极化Radarsat-2 SAR影像裸土后向散射系数（ {\sigma }_{\mathrm{soil}}^0 ）,并利用AIEM模型和Oh模型建立后向散射系数数据库,采用LUT法模拟地表有效粗糙度参数,构建基于支持向量回归的土壤水分反演模型,并系统地对比分析了不同极化方式的后向散射系数作为数据源的土壤水分反演结果。研究结果表明：不考虑粗糙度参数的单数据源作为模型参数时,同极化数据反演结果比交叉极化具有更高的反演精度;当模型参数为考虑粗糙度的多源数据时,不同极化数据的反演精度均有所提高,其中数据源为 {\sigma }_{\mathit{vv}}^0 和粗糙度参数时,反演结果最好（R ²=0.917,MAE=3.980%,RMSE=5.187%）。研究结果可为旱区稀疏植被覆盖地表土壤水分的遥感监测提供技术支持。     

Analysis of bathymetric features using sar image: An example from the southern North Sea

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Projections of wind changes for 21st century in China by three regional climate models

This paper examines the capability of three regional climate models(RCMs),i.e.,RegCM3(the International Centre for Theoretical Physics Regional Climate Model),PRECIS(Providing Regional Climates for Impacts Studies)and CMM5(the fifth-generation Pennsylvania State University-the National Center for Atmospheric Research of USA,NCAR Mesoscale Model)to simulate the near-surface-layer winds(10 m above surface)all over China in the late 20th century.Results suggest that like global climate models(GCMs),these RCMs have the certain capability of imitating the distribution of mean wind speed and fail to simulate the greatly weakening wind trends for the past 50 years in the country.However,RCMs especially RegCM3 have the better capability than that of GCMs to simulate the distribution and change feature of mean wind speed.In view of their merits,these RCMs were used to project the variability of near-surface-layer winds over China for the 21st century.The results show that 1)summer mean wind speed for 2020-2029 will be lower compared to those in 1990-1999 in most area of China; 2)annual and winter mean wind speed for 2081-2100 will be lower than those of 1971-1990 in the whole China; and 3)the changes of summer mean wind speed for 2081-2100 are uncertain.As a result,although climate models are absolutely necessary for projecting climate change to come,there are great uncertainties in projections,especially for wind speed,and these issues need to be further explored.     

基于Bedmap2与冰雷达数据的南极局部冰盖三维建模

利用Bedmap2数据与中国第29次南极科学考察期间获取的冰雷达数据,在中山站至Dome A断面的Gamburtsev山脉地区首次构建11.3 km×11.5 km南极局部冰盖三维模型。着重介绍三维模型建立过程中的数据处理,其中冰雷达数据采集首次采用中国自主研发的冰雷达系统。详细阐述了冰雷达数据的处理流程,包括数据预处理、常规图像修正技术以及冰下地形获取,得到冰下基岩埋深和冰盖内部等时层埋深,插值得到100 m分辨率的冰下基岩DEM（海拔1 729 m~2 718 m）和等时层DEM（海拔2 601 m~2 950 m）,利用南极Bedmap2冰表面栅格影像得到100 m分辨率的冰盖表面DEM（海拔3 679 m~3 745 m）。结合冰盖内外部数据处理结果,构建包含冰盖表面、冰盖内部等时层和冰下基岩地形特征的三维模型,并对模型进行检验,对冰盖内外部地形特征进行初步分析。     

Analysis of multi-dimensional SAR for determining the thickness of thin sea ice in the Bohai Sea

Flat thin ice (<30 cm thick) is a common ice type in the Bohai Sea, China. Ice thickness detection is important to offshore exploration and marine transport in winter. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) can be used to acquire sea ice data in all weather conditions, and it is a useful tool for monitoring sea ice conditions. In this paper, we combine a multi-layered sea ice electromagnetic (EM) scattering model with a sea ice thermodynamic model to assess the determination of the thickness of flat thin ice in the Bohai Sea using SAR at different frequencies, polarization, and incidence angles. Our modeling studies suggest that co-polarization backscattering coefficients and the co-polarized ratio can be used to retrieve the thickness of flat thin ice from C- and X-band SAR, while the co-polarized correlation coefficient can be used to retrieve flat thin ice thickness from L-, C-, and X-band SAR. Importantly, small or moderate incidence angles should be chosen to avoid the effect of speckle noise.