Impact of Ocean Waves on the Decorrelation of Interferometric Radar Altimeter Image

Wang, Yunhua; Bai, Yining; Zhang, Yanmin; Sun, Da Zhi; Chen, Ge; Yu, Fangjie; Zhao, Chunjiang; Sun, Hanwei; Wei, Lideng; Yang, Lei; Wu, Weifeng

doi:10.1109/lgrs.2022.3222497

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…As part of the efforts for China's future IRA satellite altimeter missions for monitoring ocean surface topography, an airborne interferometric altimeter (Airborne IRA) has been made by the Beijing Institute of Radio Measurement. The airborne IRA data were studied in three previous experiments: on 31 March 2019, in the Xiaomaidao Sea Area in Qingdao, China [9][10][11]; on 16 November 2020, in the Rizhao Sea Area, China [11][12][13]; and on 6 November 2021, in the South China Sea [11]. The SSHA reconstruction from the airborne IRA was improved by applying a multichannel likelihood method [13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sea Surface Height Wavenumber Spectrum from Airborne Interferometric Radar Altimeter

He,

Xu,

Sun

et al. 2024

Remote Sensing

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The proposed “Guanlan” ocean science satellite, led by China’s Laoshan Laboratory, includes an interferometric radar altimeter (IRA) as a key payload. As an integral part of its development, an airborne IRA experiment was conducted on 6 November 2021, with a flight path of approximately 90 km in the South China Sea. This study investigates the IRA’s ability to observe ocean sea surface height (SSH) across scales ranging from meters to mesoscale. The sea surface height anomaly (SSHA) of the IRA is aligned with the SSHA of the AVISO at scales greater than 30 km, but also demonstrates the ability to capture small-scale SSHA changes in two dimensions. We analyzed wavenumber spectra of SSHA obtained from the airborne IRA, ICESat-2, and SARAL/AltiKa satellite for this region. The results show a good agreement in power spectral density (PSD) levels between ICESat-2, SARAL/AltiKa and IRA at scales larger than 30 km. Within the submesoscale range of 1–10 km, the IRA SSHA spectrum exhibits a distinctly negative slope and the lowest energy level. The minimum PSD level of the IRA fell in the range of 10−4–10−3 m2/cycle/km, at scales around 1 km, which is more than an order of magnitude lower than that of ICESat-2, forming a spectral gap that is in agreement with the theoretical expectation. Furthermore, IRA-derived wave direction and significant wave height matched well with the MFWAM wave data. The results of this study underscore the considerable potential of airborne IRA in capturing SSHA across a range of scales, from oceanic waves to submesoscale.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The SSHA reconstruction from the airborne IRA was improved by applying a multichannel likelihood method [13]. The effect of ocean waves on the decorrelation of the IRA image was investigated [9]. The method of the azimuth cutoff of the airborne IRA image has been used to retrieve the wind wave and the wind speed [11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%