Abstract
Sea surface current is a research hotspot in oceanography. Space-borne along-track interferometric synthetic aperture radar (along-track InSAR, ATI) is a promising sensor for measuring high-resolution sea surface current field, and there is no operational system in orbit yet. To support future space-borne ATI systems, based on the ATI experimental mode of the Gaofen-3 (GF-3) satellite, the first sea surface current observing experiment was conducted in the Jiaozhou Gulf in China, in 2019. Meanwhile, SAR observations and in situ instrument measurements of the current are obtained in the experiments. The data is first preprocessed by a processor specially developed for the GF-3 ATI data. Then, the current is extracted based on the M4S mode. The retrieved current of the Jiaozhou Gulf is compared with ground-based high frequency surface wave radar data. The results show that the root mean square error of the surface current observed by the GF-3 satellite is less than 0.2 m/s.
Highlights
SEA surface current is one of the most important general movements of ocean water, and it is a crucial element in ocean observation and marine scientific research
The results show that the root mean square error (RMSE) of the surface current observed by the GF-3 satellite is less than 0.2 m/s
For the first time, based on the ATI mode of the GF-3 satellite, sea surface current observing experiments was performed in the Jiaozhou Gulf in China in October 2019
Summary
SEA surface current is one of the most important general movements of ocean water, and it is a crucial element in ocean observation and marine scientific research. Among space-borne sensors, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) can obtain high-resolution sea surface parameters. There are two methods for measuring sea surface current by SAR. The space-borne ATI is the most promising system to extract high-resolution sea surface current owing to its global observation capability during the long lifetime in an orbit.
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