Application of different internal solitary wave theories for SAR remote sensing inversion in the northern South China Sea

Abstract

This study discusses the theoretical method of the inversion of internal solitary waves (ISWs) characteristic parameters using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images and ocean reanalysis data. Based on the horizontal distribution characteristics of the pixel intensity of the internal wave fringe in the image, an imaging theoretical model based on the extended Korteweg-de Vries (eKdV) and Benjamin-Ono (BO) theories in SAR was constructed, and the peak-to-peak method and curve-fitting method for calculating the characteristic wavelength of internal solitary waves were determined. The results show that the eKdV theoretical model has the advantage of inverting solitary waves with large amplitudes under the same marine stratified structure, and it provides a more reasonable characteristic parameter estimation than the traditional Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) theory. Although the BO theory is theoretically applicable to deep-water internal waves whose wavelength is far less than the water depth, it can still provide good inversion results in practical applications. Compared to the peak-to-peak method, the curve fitting method fully considers the pixel intensity variation characteristics of the internal wave fringe profile of the image, and the calculated characteristic parameters are more reasonable. Using the maximum buoyancy frequency and internal wave vertical mode to construct the marine stratification model of the deep waters of the northeastern South China Sea may have great uncertainty, and it is better to calculate the interface depth using the relative error of the coefficients of two-layer and continuous internal wave equations. In addition, this study also proposes an internal wave inversion method using continuous SAR images, which provides more reference and support for the selection of internal wave inversion models and reliability test of inversion results in a single SAR image.