The Simulation of Ocean Surface Wind Measured by Polarimetric Scatterometer

Abstract

Ocean surface wind field is a very important marine dynamic parameter in marine environment forecasting and climatological studies. Spaceborne scatterometer is one of the most efficient remote sensors than can provide global ocean surface wind measurement. Polarimetric scatterometer (PolScat) simultaneously measures co-polarized and cross-polarized backscattering coefficient and the correlation coefficient of the co- and cross-polarized component of radar echoes which can significantly improve the performance of the sea surface wind field measurements. In this paper, we derive the error model of correlation scattering coefficient from radar echo signals. The effect of antenna polaxis deflection on correlation scattering coefficient error is analyzed. Moreover, an “end-to-end” system simulation model of PolScat is established. A modified Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) is used for ocean surface wind field inversion. Both the co-polarized backscattering coefficient and correlation scattering coefficient are included in the objective function of MLE. The simulation results show that PolScat can effectively reduce the probability of ambiguous solutions. The wind speed and wind direction inversion accuracy of PolScat is better than 1m/s and 15° respectively.