Impact of rain on wave retrieval from Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar images in tropical cyclones

The main objective of our work was to investigate the impact of rain on wave observations from C-band (~5.3 GHz) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) in tropical cyclones. In this study, 10 Sentinel-1 SAR images were available from the Satellite Hurricane Observation Campaign, which were taken under cyclonic conditions during the 2016 hurricane season. The third-generation wave model, known as Simulating WAves Nearshore (SWAN) (version 41.31), was used to simulate the wave fields corresponding to these Sentinel-1 SAR images. In addition, rainfall data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite passing over the spatial coverage of the Sentinel-1 SAR images were collected. The simulated results were validated against significant wave heights (SWHs) from the Jason-2 altimeter and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts data, revealing a root mean square error (RMSE) of ~0.5 m with a 0.25 scatter index. Winds retrieved from the VH-polarized Sentinel-1 SAR images using the Sentinel-1 Extra Wide-swath Mode Wind Speed Retrieval Model after Noise Removal were taken as prior information for wave retrieval. It was discovered that rain did indeed affect the SAR wave retrieval, as evidenced by the 3.21-m RMSE of SWHs between the SAR images and the SWAN model, which was obtained for the ~1000 match-ups with raindrops. The raindrops dampened the wave retrieval when the rain rate was < ~5 mm/hr; however, they enhanced wave retrieval for higher rain rates. It was also found that the portion of the rain-induced ring wave with a wave number > 0.05 rad/m (~125 m wavelength) was clearly observed in the SAR-derived wave spectra.     

Conditional sea surface statistics and their impact on geophysical sea surface parameters retrieved from SAR altimetry signals

In this study we present an analytical formulation of synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) altimetry signals including narrow banded nonlinear wave fields and conditional statistics between wave elevation displacements, horizontal wave slopes and vertical wave particle velocities. Considering the wave elevation displacements coskewness with respect to horizontal slopes leads to an analytical formulation of the electromagnetic bias within a SAR-mode altimeter stack. This formulation can be either parametrized by the significant wave height (SWH) and mean wave steepness, or in terms of the variance of vertical wave velocities. The effect of conditional vertical wave particle velocity variances with respect to the observed horizontal wave slopes close to nadir incidence angles leads to an effective reduction of the azimuth blurring of SAR-mode stacks. We present here a formulation of this effect by examining JONSWAP ocean wave spectra. In most cases this effect reduces the azimuth blurring by 10% to 30%. Additionally we investigate the effect of a nonlinear wave elevation displacement probability density function (PDF) on estimated geophysical parameters. We were able to show that including an elevation displacement skewness of 0.13 improves significantly the SWH consistency between altimetry and ECMWF Reanalysis v5 ERA5 results.All of these effects are validated with respect to ERA5 model data in the North East Atlantic region and in situ data located in the German Bight and Baltic Sea.The developed model can be used in both SAR and conventional altimetry retrackers.     

High-performance altimeter Doppler processing for measuring sea level height under varying sea state conditions

This paper describes an innovative method for processing nadir altimeter data acquired in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) mode, enhancing the system performances over open ocean. Similarly to the current SAR data processing scheme, the so-called LR-RMC (Low Resolution with Range Migration Correction) method, originally designed by Phalippou and Demeester (2011), includes Doppler beam forming, Doppler shift correction and range correction. In LR-RMC, however, an alternative and less complex averaging (stacking) operation is used so that all the Doppler beams produced in a radar cycle (4 bursts of 64 beams for the open-burst Sentinel-3-mode altimeter) are incoherently combined to form a multi-beam echo. In that manner, contrarily to the narrow-band SAR technique, the LR-RMC processing enlarges the effective footprint to average out the effects of surface waves and particularly those from small sub-mesoscale structures (<1 km) that are known to impact SAR-mode performances. On the other hand, the number of averaged beams is as high as in current SAR-mode processing, thus providing a noise reduction at least equally good. The LR-RMC method has the added benefit of reducing the incoherent integration time with respect to the SAR-mode processing (50 ms compared to 2.5 s) limiting possible surface movement effects. By processing one year of Sentinel-3A SRAL SAR-mode data using the LR-RMC method, it is shown that the swell impact on the SAR altimeter performances is totally removed and that an improvement of 10–50% is obtained in the measurement noise of the sea surface height and significant wave height with respect to SAR mode. Additionally, observational capabilities over the middle scales are enhanced potentially allowing the ocean mesoscale features to be retrieved and observations assimilated more usefully in ocean models.     

Preliminary gravity recovery from CryoSat-2 data in the Baffin Bay

A number of geophysical phenomenons in the open ocean are still unresolved by conventional altimetry, but could be resolved through the potential improvements offered by Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), also called Delay-Doppler, altimetry. The SAR altimeter offers the following benefits with respect to conventional satellite altimetry: factor of 20 improvements in the along-track resolution, the along-track footprint length which does not vary with wave height (sea state), and improved precision in sea surface height measurements or sea surface slope measurements.     

A comparative analysis of SLR,MLR, ANN,XGBoost and CNN for crop height estimation of sunflower using Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2

Sustainable monitoring and determining the biophysical characteristics of crops is of global importance due to the increase in demand for food. In this context, remote sensing data provide valuable information on crops. This study investigates the relationship between the variables determined from both Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and optical images and crop height. For this purpose, backscatter (σVH, σVV, σVH / σVV) and coherence (?VH, ?VV) of multi-temporal dual-polarized Sentinel-1 and vegetation indices of multi-temporal Sentinel-2 data are analyzed. Two indices, namely, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and NDVI with the red-edge band (NDVIred), are interpreted to identify the contribution of the red-edge band over the near-infrared band. The Zile District of Tokat province in Turkey where dominantly sunflower cultivation is carried out, was selected as the study area. In the analysis of the data, Simple Linear Regression (SLR), Multiple Linear Regression (MLR), Artificial Neural Network (ANN), EXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) were used. In the results of the study, ANN showed the lowest RMSE = 3.083 cm (RMSE%= 11.284) in the stem elongation period. The CNN followed the lowest RMSE for the Inflorescence development and flowering stages 19.223 cm (RMSE%=15.458) and 8.731 cm (RMSE%=5.821), respectively. In the ripening period, XGBoost achieved the lowest RMSE = 8.731 cm (RMSE%=6.091). All the best models in four methods were created using common variables of σVH, σVV, ?VH, ?VV and NDVIred, except ANN which exclude coherence variables. The results concluded that NDVIred contributed more than NDVI which is widely interpreted in previous studies.     

Validity assessment of SAMOSA retracking for fully-focused SAR altimeter waveforms

We demonstrate in this work how we can take advantage of known unfocused SAR (UF-SAR) retracking methods (e.g. the physical SAMOSA model) for retracking of fully-focused SAR (FF-SAR) waveforms. Our insights are an important step towards consistent observations of sea surface height, significant wave height and backscatter coefficient (wind speed) with both UF-SAR and FF-SAR. This is of particular interest for SAR altimetry in the coastal zone, since coastal clutter may be filtered out more efficiently in the high-resolution FF-SAR waveform data, which has the potential to improve data quality. We implemented a multi-mission FF-SAR altimetry processor for Sentinel-3 (S3) and Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich (S6), using a back-projection algorithm, and analysed ocean waveform statistics compared to multilooked UF-SAR. We find for Sentinel-3 that the averaged power waveforms of UF-SAR and FF-SAR over ocean are virtually identical, while for Sentinel-6 the FF-SAR power waveforms better resemble the UF-SAR zero-Doppler beam. We can explain and model the similarities and differences in the data via theoretical considerations of the waveform integrals. These findings suggest to use the existing UF-SAR SAMOSA model for retracking S3 FF-SAR waveforms but the SAMOSA zero-Doppler beam model for S6 FF-SAR waveforms, instead. Testing the outlined approach over short track segments, we obtain range biases between UF-SAR and FF-SAR lower than 2 mm and significant wave height biases lower than 5 cm.     

Exploring the potential of Sentinel-3 delay Doppler altimetry for enhanced detection of coastal currents along the Northwest Atlantic shelf

In this study, we evaluate Sentinel-3A satellite synthetic aperture radar (SAR) altimeter observations along the Northwest Atlantic coast, spanning the Nova Scotian Shelf, Gulf of Maine, and Mid-Atlantic Bight. Comparisons are made of altimeter sea surface height (SSH) measurements from three different altimeter data processing approaches: fully-focused synthetic aperture radar (FFSAR), un-focused SAR (UFSAR), and conventional low-resolution mode (LRM). Results show that fully-focused SAR data always outperform LRM data and are comparable or slightly better than the nominal un-focused SAR product. SSH measurement noise in both SAR-mode datasets is significantly reduced compared to LRM. FFSAR SSH 20-Hz noise levels, derived from 80-Hz FFSAR data, are lower than 20-Hz UFSAR SSH with 25% noise reduction offshore of 5 km, and 55–70% within 5 km of the coast. The offshore noise improvement is most likely due to the higher native along-track data posting rate (80 Hz for FFSAR, and 20 Hz for UFSAR), while the large coastal improvement indicates an apparent FFSAR data processing advantage approaching the coastlines. FFSAR-derived geostrophic ocean current estimates exhibit the lowest bias and noise when compared to in situ buoy-measured currents. Assessment at short spatial scales of 5–20 km reveals that Sentinel-3A SAR data provide sharper and more realistic measurement of small-scale sea surface slopes associated with expected nearshore coastal currents and small-scale gyre features that are much less well resolved in conventional altimetric LRM data.     

高精度星载SAR多普勒参数估算方法

提出了一种基于空间坐标转换,利用卫星位置、速度参数精确估算星载SAR(Synthetic Aperture Radar)全观测带多普勒参数的方法.利用卫星速度、位置,通过星载SAR空间几何模型和坐标转换关系,建立SAR图像中斜距同卫星下视角之间的四次方程,解出下视角并进一步计算出该斜距处的多普勒参数值.仿真结果表明,该方法在无卫星位置、速度误差情况下估算精度达到0.02Hz(多普勒中心频率)和2×10-4Hz/s(多普勒调频率);存在卫星位置测量误差(300m)以及速度测量误差(0.3m/s)的情况下,估算精度达到0.8Hz(多普勒中心频率)和0.07Hz/s(多普勒调频率).该方法适用于单星SAR以及分布式SAR高精度多普勒参数的估算.      

Retrieval and validation of aerosol optical depth using GF-1 WFV cameras data

Conventional AOD (Aerosol Optical Depth) retrieval is restricted to the global and regional scale due to the limited spatial resolution of satellites. This does not allow for aerosol monitoring at the city level. The Chinese GF-1 Wide Field of View (WFV) sensors have sufficiently fine resolution as a data source for AOD retrieval with fine spatial resolution and a 4-day revisit time. In this study, principles similar to those in the Deep Blue (DB) and Dark Target (DT) algorithms were used to retrieve AOD at 100 m spatial resolution from GF-1 WFV images supported by Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectraradiometer (MODIS) surface reflectance (SR) products (MOD09A1). The derived GF-1 WFV AOD were compared with a combination of MOD04_3K DT AOD and MOD04_L2 DB AOD (MODIS AOD) to find that they yield reasonable Spearman correlations (R_S > 0.82) over Taiwan and Beijing. The derived GF-1 WFV AOD were also validated against Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) AOD; the Spearman correlation values were R_S = 0.911 in Beijing and R_S = 0.858 in Taiwan.     

用真实IMU/GPS数据进行机载SAR运动补偿处理

分析了机载SAR(Synthetic Aperture Radar)条带成像模式的运动补偿技术原理,通过对激光IMU/GPS(Inertial Measurement Units/Global Positioning System)组合提供的位置参数进行分析,表明Y12载机平台具有很大的运动误差,在此基础上利用高精度激光IMU/GPS组合提供的天线相位中心精确位置参数,结合距离-多普勒成像算法进行了机载SAR数据的运动补偿处理,试验表明利用此IMU/GPS提供的运动参数进行对具有很大运动误差的SAR数据运动补偿后,已不需要计算负担沉重的自聚焦类算法进行残留运动误差补偿,就能得到高质量的高分辨率SAR图像.     

平飞模式机载双基地SAR动目标检测方法

提出了一种平飞模式机载双基地SAR地面慢速运动目标检测和参数估计方法.考虑到双基地SAR系统的特点,采用分数阶傅里叶变换(FrFT,Fractional Fourier Transform)技术对动目标进行聚焦,以提高动目标的信杂比.同时结合多通道杂波抑制干涉技术,进一步抑制地杂波并实现动目标参数的精确估计.从双基地SAR的空间几何模型和回波信号入手,推导了杂波对消时收发雷达载机所需满足的飞行条件和慢动目标参数估计的方法.最后通过计算机仿真,验证了该算法的有效性.     

Physical assessment of coastal vulnerability under enhanced land subsidence in Semarang,Indonesia, using multi-sensor satellite data

Research has been conducted in Semarang, Indonesia, to assess coastal vulnerability under enhanced land subsidence using multi-sensor satellite data, including the Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) Phased Array type L-band SAR (PALSAR), Landsat TM, IKONOS, and TOPEX/Poseidon. A coastal vulnerability index (CVI) was constructed to estimate the level of vulnerability of a coastline approximately 48.68?km in length using seven physical variables, namely, land subsidence, relative sea level change, coastal geomorphology, coastal slope, shoreline change, mean tidal range, and significant wave height. A comparison was also performed between a CVI calculated using seven parameters and a CVI using six parameters, the latter of which excludes the land subsidence parameter, to determine the effects of land subsidence during the coastal vulnerability assessment. This study showed that the accuracy of coastal vulnerability was increased 40% by adding the land subsidence factor (i.e., CVI 6 parameters?=?53%, CVI 7 parameters?=?93%). Moreover, Kappa coefficient indicated very good agreement (0.90) for CVI 7 parameters and fair agreement (0.3) for CVI 6 parameters. The results indicate that the area of very high vulnerability increased by 7% when land subsidence was added. Hence, using the CVI calculation including land subsidence parameters, the very high vulnerability area is determined to be 20% of the total coastline or 9.7?km of the total 48.7?km of coastline. This study proved that land subsidence has significant influence on coastal vulnerability in Semarang.     

ASAR imaging for coastal upwelling in the Baltic Sea

Analysis of Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) and Aqua/Terra Moderate Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) infrared (IR) imagery of coastal upwelling in the southeastern Baltic Sea is presented. It is found that upwelling features are well distinct in the SAR images, and the leading imaging mechanism appears to be the change of the marine atmospheric boundary layer (MABL) stratification over the sea surface temperature (SST) front. This finding is supported by model calculations of the MABL transformation supplemented with the SAR backscatter calculations based on the CMOD4 model. In addition an empirical dependence of the SAR contrasts over the upwelling region on the wind speed and the SST drop is suggested. Finally, surface slicks accumulated in the sea surface current convergence zones generate additional distinct features in SAR imagery. This effect is interpreted within the framework of the coastal current circulation model based on analysis of the SST snapshot.     

Exploiting the Sentinel-3 tandem phase dataset and azimuth oversampling to better characterize the sensitivity of SAR altimeter sea surface height to long ocean waves

Being the very first SAR mode altimeter tandem phase, the Sentinel-3 A/B tandem phase has provided an unprecedented opportunity to better characterize the sensitivity of SAR altimetry retrievals to high-frequency processes, such as long ocean waves. In this paper, we show that for some sea-state conditions, that are still to be precisely characterized, long ocean waves are responsible for high-frequency (spatial and temporal) coherent Sea Level Anomaly (SLA) signals. It is found that the peak wavelength corresponds to the dominant swell wavelength. Furthermore, the short time lag between S3-A and S3-B acquisitions allows performing cross-spectral analyses that reveal phase shifts consistent with waves travelling according to the wave dispersion relation. It is also demonstrated that the classical 20 Hz sampling frequency is insufficient to properly sample most swell-induced SLA signals and that aliasing can generate errors over the entire frequency spectrum, including at long wavelengths. These results advocate for the use of azimuth oversampling (40 Hz or 80 Hz). Low-pass filtering should be applied prior to any down-sampling to 20 Hz, in order to prevent long-wavelength errors induced by spectral leakage.     

收发一体式无线电高度表设计

为了满足中小型掠海飞行器对无线电高度表的需求，基于IVS948模块设计了一种收发一体式无线电高度表。采用线性调频连续波体制，分析对比了锯齿波和对称三角波调制信号对测量高度的影响，并对其它主要参数的选取进行了计算和分析；对软件运行流程中各个工作模式的关键环节进行了具体说明，并将FFT-CZT算法引入高度测量中。经过对工程样机的带飞试验，其测量数据与GPS差分高度数据相一致。结果表明，该型高度表工作可靠，测量数据可信，精度高，可用于中小型掠海飞行器的飞行控制系统。     

0.1m分辨率机载SAR孔径依赖性运动补偿方法

讨论了0.1m分辨率机载合成孔径雷达(SAR,Synthetic Aperture Radar)运动补偿方案设计中的一个新问题.超高方位分辨率意味着长合成孔径和大相干积累角,条带模式下的回波数据中可能包含不可忽略的方位角度相关的残余运动误差.分析了这种运动误差孔径依赖性对机载SAR成像质量的影响,它将造成图像的几何失真和方位散焦.提出了一种基于子孔径数据处理的补偿方法,根据雷达瞬时照射时刻与多普勒频率之间的关联性对数据进行方位向上的分段和补偿,可以直接嵌入联合一阶运动补偿和二阶运动补偿的成像处理流程中.仿真结果表明此孔径依赖性运动补偿方法进一步改善了图像的聚焦质量.     

An Integer Precise Point Positioning technique for sea surface observations using a GPS buoy

GPS data dedicated to sea surface observation are usually processed using differential techniques. Unfortunately, the precision of resulting kinematic positions is baseline-length dependent. So, high precision sea surface observations using differential GPS techniques are limited to coasts, lakes, and rivers. Recent improvements in GPS satellite products (orbits, clocks, and phase biases) make phase ambiguity fixing at the zero difference level achievable and opens up the observation of the sea surface without geographical constraints. This paper recalls the concept of the Integer Precise Point Positioning technique and discusses the precision of GPS buoy positioning. A sequential version of the GINS software has been implemented to achieve single epoch GPS positioning. We used 1 Hz data from a two week GPS campaign conducted in the Kerguelen Islands. A GPS buoy has been moored close to a radar gauge and 90 m away from a permanent GPS station. This infrastructure offers the opportunity to compare both kinematic Integer Precise Point Positioning and classical differential GPS positioning techniques to in situ radar gauge data. We found that Precise Point Positioning results are not significantly biased with respect to radar gauge data and that horizontal time series are consistent with differential processing at the sub-centimetre precision level. Nevertheless, standard deviations of height time series with respect to radar gauge data are typically [4–5] cm. The dominant driver for noise at this level is attributed to errors in tropospheric estimates which propagate into position solutions.     

基于Hybrid-TOPS的星载SAR运动目标监视新模式

针对传统星载合成孔径雷达(SAR)模式下运动目标测速范围有限、精度低等问题,本文提出了一种基于Hybrid-TOPS的星载SAR运动目标监视新模式。首先,利用混合度因子对星载SAR成像模式进行定量化的描述。在此基础上,通过TOPS模式与逆TOPS模式的组合提出一种运动目标监视新模式,该模式不仅能实现对同一区域的多次观测,且具有方位向连续观测的能力。然后,利用新模式所获取的不同方位向观测角度下的SAR序贯图像,再结合图像配准和基于新模式的运动目标参数反演即完成目标方位向速度信息的精确提取。最后,仿真验证了新模式的有效性与运动信息提取的精确性。      

Comprehensive comparison of VHR 3D spatial data acquired from IKONOS and TerraSAR-X imagery

With the launch of very high resolution (VHR) optical and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) remote sensing satellites such as IKONOS and TerraSAR-X, a new era has begun in 3D spatial data acquirement. IKONOS provided the first VHR data is still being preferred for many remote sensing applications. TerraSAR-X is considered as a revolution in SAR imaging as a result of 1 m resolution imaging capability. The imaging principles of these satellites are quite different and include advantages and disadvantages that have considerable effects on the quality of acquired 3D spatial data.