CO-POLARIZED SAR IMAGING OF OCEANIC INTERNAL WAVES
I.E. Kozlov
1
, V.N. Kudryavtsev
1
, B. Chapron
1,2
, F. Collard
3
, J.A. Johannessen
4
,
A.G. Myasoedov
1
1
Satellite Oceanography Laboratory (SOLab), Russian State Hydrometeorological
University, St. Petersburg, Russia, igor.eko@gmail.com
2
Institute Français de Recherche pour I’Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER), Plouzane,
France, bertrand.chapron@ifremer.fr
3
CLS, Plouzane, France, drefab@gmail.com
4
Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Centre (NERSC), Bergen, Norway,
johnny.johannessen@nersc.no
An approach recently suggested in [1] for analysis of co-polarized (VV and HH) SAR
images is extensively employed in this study to interpret imaging mechanisms of oceanic
internal waves in the White Sea. Following this approach, co-pol SAR images are simply
transformed into two other images, one whose intensity is dominated by polarized resonant
scattering (hereinafter, polarization difference (PD), and the second whose intensity is
dominated by non-polarized returns from breaking waves (NP).
A number of quad-pol Radarsat-2 SAR images acquired over the White Sea in July-
August 2012 and supported by in situ ship measurements are presented and analyzed. These
SAR images exhibit distinct signatures of nonlinear oceanic internal waves (see Fig. 1).
Fig. 1. Distinct signatures of nonlinear internal waves on RADARSAT-2 SAR image (VV-
polarization) acquired over the north-eastern White Sea on 29 July 2012 (14:45 UTC).
© MDA © CSA