EGU24-10064, updated on 08 Mar 2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-10064
EGU General Assembly 2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Potential of synthetic aperture radar wide swath acquisitions to map sea state variability of European seas

Lisa Maillard1, Antoine Grouazel1, Frédéric Nouguier1, Mickael Accensi1, Robin Marquart2, Jean-Marc Delouis1, and Alexis Mouche1
Lisa Maillard et al.
  • 1IFREMER, Univ. Brest, CNES, CNRS, IRD, Laboratoire d'océanographie physique et spatiale , France (lisa.maillard@ifremer.fr)
  • 2Self employed in data analysis

Copernicus Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) mission systematically acquires data in Interferometric Wide swath mode over European land and water. This study investigates the potential of this data processed into Level-1 (L1) Single Look Complex (SLC) to compute meaningful image cross-spectra over the ocean to retrieve ocean surface waves parameters. First, each L1 SLC is processed relative to a "tile'', a prescribed spatial division of the burst (a unitary acquisition sequence of Sentinel-1 TOPS mode) and SAR image cross-spectra are defined within the burst and between two adjacent bursts. Then, using a neural network approach based on SAR image cross-spectra and on the WaveWatch III® wave model, an algorithm is proposed to provide estimates of significant wave height, fractions of wave height due to wind sea, and mean wave period. As obtained, the algorithm yields to promising performances when validated against in situ and satellite data.

How to cite: Maillard, L., Grouazel, A., Nouguier, F., Accensi, M., Marquart, R., Delouis, J.-M., and Mouche, A.: Potential of synthetic aperture radar wide swath acquisitions to map sea state variability of European seas, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-10064, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-10064, 2024.