Retrieval of Ocean Surface Currents and Winds Using Satellite SAR backscatter and Doppler frequency shift

Ocean surface winds and currents play an important role for weather, climate, marine life, ship navigation, oil spill drift and search and rescue. In-situ observations of the ocean are sparse and costly. Satellites provide a useful complement to these observations. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is particularly attractive due to its high spatial resolution and its capability to extract both sea surface winds and currents day and night and almost independent of weather.The work in this thesis involves processing of along-track interferometric SAR (ATI-SAR) data, analysis of the backscatter and Doppler frequency shift, and development of wind and current retrieval algorithms. Analysis of the Doppler frequency shift showed a systematic bias. A calibration method was proposed and implemented to correct for this bias. Doppler analysis also showed that the wave contribution to the SAR Doppler centroid often dominates over the current contribution. This wave contribution is estimated using existing theoretical and empirical Doppler models. For wind and current retrieval, two methods were developed and implemented.The first method, called the direct method, consists of retrieval of the wind speed from SAR backscatter using an empirical backscatter model. In order to retrieve the radial current, the retrieved wind speed is used to correct for the wave contribution. The current retrieval was assessed using two different (theoretical and empirical) Doppler models and wind inputs (model and SAR-derived). It was found that the results obtained by combining the Doppler empirical model with the SAR-derived wind speed were more consistent with ocean models.The second method, called Bayesian method, consists of blending the SAR observables (backscatter and Doppler shift) with an atmospheric and an oceanic model to retrieve the total wind and current vector fields. It was shown that this method yields more accurate estimates, i.e. reduces the models biases against in-situ measurements. Moreover, the method introduces small scale features, e.g. fronts and meandering, which are weakly resolved by the models.The correlation between the surface wind vectors and the SAR Doppler shift was demonstrated empirically using the Doppler shift estimated from over 300 TanDEM-X interferograms and ECMWF reanalysis wind vectors. Analysis of polarimetric data showed that theoretical models such as Bragg and composite surface models over-estimate the backscatter polarization ratio and Doppler shift polarization difference. A combination of a theoretical Doppler model and an empirical modulation transfer function was proposed. It was found that this model is more consistent with the analyzed data than the pure theoretical models.The results of this thesis will be useful for integrating SAR retrievals in ocean current products and assimilating SAR observables in the atmospheric, oceanic or coupled models. The results are also relevant for preparation studies of future satellite missions

Sea Surface Current Measurements Using Along-Track Interferometric SAR

Ocean currents affect the weather, the climate and the marine ecosystem. Observing ocean currents is important for understanding the upper-ocean layer dynamics and its interaction with the other components of the climate system. In-situ measurements are sparse and their deployment and maintenance is costly. Satellite remote sensing with large spatial coverage offers a good complement to the in-situ observations. In this work we have studied the spaceborne Along-Track Interferometric SAR (ATI-SAR) for measuring sea surface currents. The measurement principle is based on the fact that the phase difference between two SAR acquisitions is directly related to radial (line-of-sight) velocity of the illuminated surface. Previous studies based on similar systems were carried out in areas with well defined and strong tidal currents ( ~1 - 3 m/s). In this work we demonstrate thecapability of ATI-SAR, through several study cases, in areas with weak currents ( <0.5 m /s). This is challenging for the satellite measurements of surface currents because it requires very accurate processing and retrieval algorithms. In addition, it has been found that wave motion contribution, systematically dominates the measured ATI-SAR radial velocity in these weak current areas. Estimation of the wave motion contribution relies on high-resolution and accurate wind data. Thus, a wind speed retrieval algorithm from SAR is needed to support the ATI-SAR current retrieval. We have shown that with an appropriate processing of the ATI-SAR phase and with applying the necessary corrections to the measured velocity a good agreement with ocean circulation models is achieved (rmse =0.1 m /s). These corrections include phase calibration and wind compensation to correct for instrument and geophysical systematic errors, respectively. Finally, a novel method for removing the wind direction ambiguity, based on the ATI-SAR phase, is presented. In previous methods, the wind ambiguity removal was based on external information, e.g. an atmospheric model or on visual observation of wind shadows

Direct comparison of sea surface velocity estimated from Sentinel-1 and TanDEM-X SAR data

This paper presents the first direct comparison of the sea surface radial velocity (RVL) derived from the two satellite SAR systems Sentinel-1 and TanDEM-X, operating at different frequencies and imaging modes. The RVL is derived from the Doppler centroid (Dc) provided in the Sentinel-1 OCN product and from the along-track interferometric phase of the TanDEM-X. The comparison is carried out using opportunistic acquisitions, collocated in space and time, over three different sites. First, it is observed that the RVL derived from both satellites is biased, thus calibration is applied using the land as a reference. The comparison shows that the correlation and the mean RVL bias between the two datasets depend on the differences in acquisition time, incidence angle and azimuth angle, and on wind and current speed and direction. It is found that, given a time difference of < 20 min, the spatial correlation coefficient is relatively high (between 0.7 and 0.93), which indicates that the two SAR systems observe similar sea surface current fields. The spatial correlation degrades primarily due to increasing time difference and decreasing current magnitudes. The mean RVL bias increases primarily with the radial wind speed, which suggests that the RVL bias is mainly due to the wave-induced Doppler shift. This study shows that under certain conditions, i.e. similar acquisition geometry and short time delay, a good agreement between the two independently derived RVL is achieved. This encourages a synergistic use of the sea surface velocity estimated from different C- and X-band SAR systems

Empirical Relationship Between the Doppler Centroid Derived From X-Band Spaceborne InSAR Data and Wind Vectors

One of the challenges in ocean surface current retrieval from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data is the estimation and removal of the wave-induced Doppler centroid (DC). This article demonstrates empirically the relationship between the dc derived from spaceborne X-band InSAR data and the ocean surface wind and waves. In this study, we analyzed over 300 TanDEM-X image pairs. It is found that the general characteristics of the estimated dc follow the theoretically expected variation with incidence angle, wind speed, and wind direction. An empirical geophysical model function (GMF) is fit to the estimated dc and compared to existing models and previous experiments. Our GMF is in good agreement (within 0.2 m/s) with other models and data sets. It is found that the wind-induced Doppler velocity contributes to the total Doppler velocity with about 15% of the radial wind speed. This is much larger than the sum of the contributions from the Bragg waves (~0.2 m/s) and the wind-induced drift current (~3% of wind speed). This indicates a significant (dominant) contribution of the long wind waves to the SAR dc. Moreover, analysis of dual-polarized data shows that the backscatter polarization ratio (PR=σ⁰VV/σ⁰HH) and the dc polarization difference (PD=|dcVV|-|dcHH|) are systematically larger than 1 and smaller than 0 Hz, respectively, and both increase in magnitude with incidence angle. The estimated PR and PD are compared to other theoretical and empirical models. The Bragg scattering theory-based (pure Bragg and composite surface) models overestimate both PR and PD, suggesting that other scattering mechanisms, e.g., wave breaking, are involved. In general, it is found that empirical models are more consistent with both backscatter and Doppler data than theory-based models. This motivates a further improvement of SAR dc GMFs

Measurements of Sea Surface Currents in the Baltic Sea Region Using Spaceborne Along-Track InSAR

The main challenging problems in ocean current retrieval from along-track interferometric (ATI)-synthetic aperture radar (SAR) are phase calibration and wave bias removal. In this paper, a method based on differential InSAR (DInSAR) technique for correcting the phase offset and its variation is proposed. The wave bias removal is assessed using two different Doppler models and two different wind sources. In addition to the wind provided by an atmospheric model, the wind speed used for wave correction in this work is extracted from the calibrated SAR backscatter. This demonstrates that current retrieval from ATI-SAR can be completed independently of atmospheric models. The retrieved currents, from four TanDEM-X (TDX) acquisitions over the 6resund channel in the Baltic Sea, are compared to a regional ocean circulation model. It is shown that by applying the proposed phase correction and wave bias removal, a good agreement in spatial variation and current direction is achieved. The residual bias, between the ocean model and the current retrievals, varies between 0.013 and 0.3 m/s depending on the Doppler model and wind source used for wave correction. This paper shows that using SAR as a source of wind speed reduces the bias and root-mean-squared-error (RMSE) of the retrieved currents by 20% and 15%, respectively. Finally, the sensitivity of the sea current retrieval to Doppler model and wind errors are discussed

COMPARISON OF THE SEA SURFACE VELOCITY DERIVED FROM SENTINEL-1 AND TANDEM-X

This paper presents a direct comparison of the sea surface radial velocity (RVL) derived from the two satellite SAR systems Sentinel-1 and TanDEM-X, operating at different frequencies and imaging modes. The RVL is derived from the Doppler centroid (Dc) provided in the Sentinel-1 OCN product and from the along-track interferometric phase of the TanDEM-X, respectively. The comparison is performed using an opportunistic collocated acquisition over the Pentland Firth strait, known for its strong tidal stream. This comparison shows that the two SAR systems observe similar sea surface circulation patterns with high spatial correlation coefficient (r ~0.8). It is also shown that, provided a common calibration reference is available, the two independently derived RVL are quantitatively in good agreement with a negligible bias and reasonable RMSE (~0.3 m/s). This encourages use of the synergy between different C- and X-band SAR systems, measuring sea surface velocity

Using Sentinel-1 Ocean Data for Mapping Sea Surface Currents Along the Southern Norwegian Coast

In this paper, the capability of Sentinel-1 data to map ocean surface currents in the Skagerrak Sea, with a focus on the Norwegian Coastal Current (NCC), is investigated. Post-processing methods for removing artefacts in the data and improving of the geophysical interpretation are suggested. Scalloping is one major artefact, which significantly degrades the quality of the velocity maps. Two methods, in spatial and spectral domain, for correcting this effect are proposed. It is also found that the radial velocity provided in the Sentinel-1 ocean data is biased, hence land is used as a reference to correct for the absolute and inter-beam bias. Finally, the retrieved (corrected) velocity is compared to a regional ocean circulation model (ROMS). It is shown that there is a good agreement between the ocean model and the retrieved velocity with values of ≈ 0.8 m/s in the core of the NCC

Wind direction ambiguity removal using along-track InSAR: A case study

The main problem in wind retrieval using SAR imagery is the lack of the wind direction information. A few methods have been proposed to extract the wind direction from SAR images. The main limitation of these methods is the 180 degrees ambiguity in the direction. Usually, an external source of wind direction is used to remove this ambiguity. This study exploits the Along-track Interferometric SAR (ATI-SAR) phase to demonstrate its usefulness to tackle this problem. A method is proposed to remove the wind direction ambiguity using the ATI-SAR phase information. This is based on the fact that the interferometric phase is related to the sea surface motion direction. Depending on the sign convention, the phase is positive/negative for advancing/receding target respectively. This effect is used to assist the wind extraction algorithm to select the most plausible direction. The results show a very good agreement with atmospheric model and visual investigation

Phase calibration of TanDEM-X ATI-SAR data for sea surface velocity measurements

It has been demonstrated that Along Track Interferometric (ATI) SAR is a useful tool to retrieve ocean surface currents. The ATI SAR provides an interferometric phase (hereafter called phase) which is directly related to the Line-Of-Sight (LOS) component of the surface velocity. The accuracy of ocean currents retrieval is highly dependent on the phase processing. For instance, a properly processed phase must equal zero over static targets. The measured TanDEM-X phase rarely (if ever) satisfies this condition which indicates a phase offset independent of the surface properties. The offset can be either due to a phase synchronization issue or to using inaccurate orbital and attitude information in the processing. The objective of phase calibration is the estimation and the removal of the offset and possible trends from the measured phase. In this paper, the topographic phase is simulated using a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and baseline information. The calibration is carried out by estimating the average of the phase over land, after topography correction, and subtracting the estimated value from the measured phase. Finally, the residual phase trend is removed using a second order polynomial fitting

Wind-wave effect on ATI-SAR measurements of ocean surface currents in the Baltic Sea

Along-Track Interferometric (ATI) SAR has demonstrated through several studies a capability to detect ocean surface currents. One of the most challenging problems in ocean surface current retrieval using SAR is the removal of the wind-wave contribution. The phase difference provided by ATI-SAR technique is directly related to the radial velocity of the moving ocean surface. In order to infer the current-only velocity from the total phase the wind-wave contribution need to be removed. This is achieved by simulation of SAR Doppler spectra from given wind fields. This paper investigates the effect of the local wind on ATI-SAR phase. A study case, where the backscatter modulation is dominated by the wind variation, is illustrated using TanDEM-X data over the Baltic Sea. It is shown that retrieving high resolution winds from SAR data using an empirical wind model and using the retrieved winds as input to the SAR imaging model improves the simulated SAR signatures