High Resolution Remote Sensing of Ocean Wind and Wave Fields

The technical approach in this project involves three types of models: (1) the two-scale electromagnetic scattering model, which relates the radar backscatter to the surface wave spectrum, (2) the wave action model, which describes the relationship between the surface wave spectrum and the near-surface wind field, and (3) atmospheric dynamical models that describe or constrain the spatial variations in the surface wind field. Linking the first two models allows a forward prediction of the synthetic aperture radar image for a prescribed wind field. However, it is possible, at least in principle, for two different wind fields to produce identical images, since the radar cross section is influenced by both the wind speed and direction. Our approach to resolving this ambiguity is to constrain the wind field, either by the use of atmospheric dynamical models or by means of auxiliary information supplied by other sensors (such as scatterometers or radiometers). These constraints will be incorporated into a formal inversion procedure in order to estimate the wind field from the synthetic aperture radar image.