scholarly journals Evaluation of the Significant Wave Height Data Quality for the Sentinel-3 Synthetic Aperture Radar Altimeter

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (18) ◽  
pp. 3107
Author(s):  
Yong Wan ◽  
Rongjuan Zhang ◽  
Xiaodong Pan ◽  
Chenqing Fan ◽  
Yongshou Dai

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) altimeters represent a new method of microwave remote sensing for ocean wave observations. The adoption of SAR technology in the azimuthal direction has the advantage of a high resolution. The Sentinel-3 altimeter is the first radar altimeter to acquire global observations in SAR mode; hence, the data quality needs to be assessed before extensively applying these data. The European Space Agency (ESA) evaluates the Sentinel-3 accuracy on a global scale but has yet to perform a detailed analysis in terms of different offshore distances and different water depths. In this paper, Sentinel-3 and Jason-2 significant wave height (SWH) data are matched in both time and space with buoy data from the United States East and West Coasts and the Central Pacific Ocean. The Sentinel-3 SWH data quality is evaluated according to different offshore distances and water depths in comparison with Jason-2 SWH data. In areas more than 50 km offshore, the Sentinel-3 SWH accuracy is generally high and less affected by the water depth and sea conditions (root-mean-square error of 0.28 m and correlation coefficient of 0.98); in areas less than 50 km offshore, the SWH data accuracy is slightly affected by water depth and sea conditions (especially the former). Compared with Jason-2, the observation ability of the Sentinel-3 altimeter in nearshore areas with water depths of 0 m-500 m is greatly improved, but in some deep water areas with stable sea conditions, the Jason-2 SWH data accuracy is higher than that of Sentinel-3. This work provides a reference for the refined application of Sentinel-3 SWH data in offshore deep water areas and nearshore shallow water areas.

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 1367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weizeng Shao ◽  
Yuyi Hu ◽  
Jingsong Yang ◽  
Ferdinando Nunziata ◽  
Jian Sun ◽  
...  

In this study, an empirical algorithm is proposed to retrieve significant wave height (SWH) from dual-polarization Sentinel-1 (S-1) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery collected under cyclonic conditions. The retrieval scheme is based on the well-known CWAVE empirical function that is here updated to deal with multi-polarization S-1 SAR measurements collected using the interferometric wide (IW) and the Extra Wide-Swath (EW) imaging modes, under cyclonic conditions. First, a training dataset that consists of six S-1 SAR images collected under cyclonic conditions is exploited to both tune the retrieval function and to check the soundness of the retrievals against the co-located WAVEWATCH-III (WW3) numerical simulations. The comparison of simulation from the WW3 model and measurements from altimeter Jason-2 shows a 0.29m root mean square error (RMSE) of significant wave height (SWH). Then, a testing data-set that consists of two S-1 SAR images is exploited to provide a preliminary validation. The results, verified against both WW3 and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) data, show the soundness of the herein approach.


Author(s):  
Nelson Violante-Carvalho ◽  
Ian S. Robinson

Spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is to date the only source of two dimensional directional wave spectra with continuous and global coverage when operated in the so-called SAR Wave Mode (SWM). Since the launch in 1991 of the first European Remote Sensing Satellite ERS-1 and more recently with ENVISAT millions of SWM imagettes containing detailed spectral information are now available in quasi-real time. This huge amount of directional wave data has opened up many exciting possibilities for the improvement of our knowledge of the dynamics of ocean waves. However the retrieval of wave spectra from SAR images is not a trivial exercise due to the nonlinearities involved in the mapping mechanism. The Max-Planck Institut (MPI) scheme was the first ever proposed and most widely used algorithm to retrieve directional wave spectra from SAR images. In this work significant wave height retrieved from SAR images using the MPI scheme are compared against one year of directional buoy measurements obtained in deep water and against WAM spectra. Our results show that for periods shorter than 12 seconds the WAM model performs better than the MPI method, even considering the fact that the model is used as first guess to the MPI scheme. However, for periods longer than 12 seconds (the part of the spectrum directly observed by SAR) the MPI method performs better than WAM. This is in contrast with the results obtained by Voorrips et al. (2001), who found that the performance of the WAM model is superior even when only the low wavenumber part of the spectrum is considered.


Author(s):  
Brandon Quach ◽  
Yannik Glaser ◽  
Justin Edward Stopa ◽  
Alexis Aurelien Mouche ◽  
Peter Sadowski

1994 ◽  
Vol 99 (C12) ◽  
pp. 24941 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. S. Hayne ◽  
D. W. Hancock ◽  
C. L. Purdy ◽  
P. S. Callahan

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 1355
Author(s):  
Enjin Zhao ◽  
Lin Mu ◽  
Zhaoyang Hu ◽  
Xinqiang Wang ◽  
Junkai Sun ◽  
...  

Revetment elements and protective facilities on a breakwater can effectively weaken the impact of waves. In order to resist storm surges, there is a plan to build a breakwater on the northern shore of Meizhou Bay in Putian City, China. To better design it, considering different environmental conditions, physical and numerical experiments were carried out to accurately study the effects of the breakwater and its auxiliary structures on wave propagation. In the experiments, the influence of the wave type, initial water depth, and the structure of the fence plate are considered. The wave run-up and dissipation, the wave overtopping volume, and the structure stability are analyzed. The results indicate that the breakwater can effectively resist the wave impact, reduce the wave run-up and overtopping, and protect the rear buildings. In addition, under the same still water depth and significant wave height, the amount of overtopped water under regular waves is larger than that under irregular waves. With the increase of the still water depth and significant wave height, the overtopped water increases, which means that when the storm surge occurs, damage on the breakwater under the high tide level is greater than that under the low tide level. Besides, the fence plate can effectively dissipate energy and reduce the overtopping volume by generating eddy current in the cavity. Considering the stability and the energy dissipation capacity of the fence plate, it is suggested that a gap ratio of 50% is reasonable.


2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 371-391 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morteza Zanganeh ◽  
Abbas Yeganeh-Bakhtiary ◽  
Takao Yamashita

In this study, the adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and artificial neural network (ANN) were employed to estimate the wind- and wave-induced coastal current velocities. The collected data at the Joeutsu-Ogata coast of the Japan Sea were used to develop the models. In the models, significant wave height, wave period, wind direction, water depth, incident wave angle, and wind speed were considered as the input variables; and longshore and cross-shore current velocities as the output variables. The comparison of the models showed that the ANN model outperforms the ANFIS model. In addition, evaluation of the models versus the multiple linear regression and multiple nonlinear regression with power functions models indicated their acceptable accuracy. A sensitivity test proved the stronger effects of wind speed and wind direction on longshore current velocities. In addition, this test showed great effects of significant wave height on cross-shore currents' velocities. It was concluded that the angle of incident wave, water depth, and significant wave period had weaker influences on the velocity of coastal currents.


2007 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 1102-1116 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Gómez-Enri ◽  
C. P. Gommenginger ◽  
M. A. Srokosz ◽  
P. G. Challenor ◽  
J. Benveniste

For early satellite altimeters, the retrieval of geophysical information (e.g., range, significant wave height) from altimeter ocean waveforms was performed on board the satellite, but this was restricted by computational constraints that limited how much processing could be performed. Today, ground-based retracking of averaged waveforms transmitted to the earth is less restrictive, especially with respect to assumptions about the statistics of ocean waves. In this paper, a theoretical maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) ocean waveform retracker is applied tothe Envisat Radar Altimeter system (RA-2) 18-Hz averaged waveforms under both linear (Gaussian) and nonlinear ocean wave statistics assumptions, to determine whether ocean wave skewness can be sensibly retrieved from Envisat RA-2 waveforms. Results from the MLE retracker used in nonlinear mode provide the first estimates of global ocean wave skewness based on RA-2 Envisat averaged waveforms. These results show for the first time geographically coherent skewness fields and confirm the notion that large values of skewness occur primarily in regions of large significant wave height. Results from the MLE retracker run in linear and nonlinear modes are compared with each other and with the RA-2 Level 2 Sensor Geophysical Data Records (SGDR) products to evaluate the impact of retrieving skewness on other geophysical parameters. Good agreement is obtained between the linear and nonlinear MLE results for both significant wave height and epoch (range), except in areas of high-wave-height conditions.


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