wind, wave, SAR

Carratelli, E.P., Chapron, B., Dentale, F., Reale, F.
Simulating the influence of wave whitecaps on SAR images
European Space Agency, (Special Publication) ESA SP (656 SP)

The work provides a new application of numerical pseudo-random simulation of satellite active sensor imagery, which allows a greater freedom to introduce complex hydrodynamic mechanisms compared to the traditional spectral analytical
procedure.
After previous works  on the basic methodology, which mainly concentrated on tilting and Doppler shift effects, the possibility is examined here of including the effects of wave whitecapping in the simulation. Recent results  highlight the importance of wave breaking and the consequent formation of whitecaps on the image formation mechanism. Such an effect was already considered in
[7] and [8] in connection with passive microwave
sensors; it was also taken into account as a possible
element of SAR sea current visualization by [5], [6] and
[9], but it is still relatively new within the context of
SAR wind and wave analysis, which until recently was
assumed to depend mainly on capillary wave
modulation and tilt. On the other hand, in the last few
years the understanding of offshore wave breaking and
whitecap formation has improved to the point that such
processes can be confidently included in the image
modeling.
Some examples are given on how to represent whitecapping in the simulation, also by including the effects of the Doppler shift and its role in generating thefinal SAR image.