Semi-Empirical Model for the Ka-band Sea Surface Doppler Centroid

Author(s):  
Yury Yurovsky ◽  
Vladimir Kudryavtsev ◽  
Semyon Grodsky ◽  
Bertrand Chapron

<p>The sea surface Doppler spectrum centroid is a principal parameter for the sea surface current retrieval from Doppler radar measurements. Satellite Doppler scatterometers are proposed to operate in the Ka-band (SKIM, DopplerScatt/WaCM, SEASTAR) in order to achieve sufficient measurement accuracy. Todays documentation of the Ka-band sea surface backscattering parameters is poor, thus this work is aimed at presenting a model for the sea surface Doppler spectrum centroid (DC) deducted from field data collected from the Black Sea research platform. The model relies on the well-known two-scale surface separation approach. Within this framework, the small-scale waves are the scatterers moving at their inherent speed (Bragg wave phase velocity or specular point velocity), which, in turn, are advected by the large-scale wave orbital velocities. These modulations lead to correlated variations of local scatterer cross-section and speed. The inherent scatterer velocity is computed theoretically, while the modulation term is described by the empirical modulation transfer function (MTF) which naturally involves both tilt and hydrodynamics components as a function of look geometry and sea state. The proposed semi-empirical DC model is in good agreement with measurements if in situ wave gauge directional spectrum is used as a wave input. Based on this finding, we extrapolate the semi-empirical DC model on the arbitrary surface described by the physical model of the wind wave spectrum. The resulting DC model is compared to the published empirical models and measurements (SAXON-FPN, DopplerScatt, AirSWOT, Wavemill field campaigns, and CDOP Envisat ASAR model). The model DC dependencies on incidence angle and wind speed are consistent with Ku-band<br>SAXON-FPN, Ka-band AirSWOT, and DopplerScatt datasets, but differs from C-band CDOP model and X-band Wavemill dataset, which generally have higher DC magnitude (besides longer operating radar wavelength, the difference can be attributed to swell dominated sea observed in the CDOP and Wavemill cases). The model predicts that the DC rises with wind speed at small incidence angles, 20–30<sup>o</sup>, but the DC level is almost independent of wind at larger incidence angles, 50–55<sup>o</sup>. Such behavior is explained by the balance between opposing wind dependencies of the MTF magnitude and the magnitude of modulating wave orbital velocities.</p><p>The work is supported by the Russian Science Foundation under grant No. 17-77-30019.</p>

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (19) ◽  
pp. 6684-6700 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam H. Monahan

Abstract The temporal autocorrelation structures of sea surface vector winds and wind speeds are considered. Analyses of scatterometer and reanalysis wind data demonstrate that the autocorrelation functions (acf) of surface zonal wind, meridional wind, and wind speed generally drop off more rapidly in the midlatitudes than in the low latitudes. Furthermore, the meridional wind component and wind speed generally decorrelate more rapidly than the zonal wind component. The anisotropy in vector wind decorrelation scales is demonstrated to be most pronounced in the storm tracks and near the equator, and to be a feature of winds throughout the depth of the troposphere. The extratropical anisotropy is interpreted in terms of an idealized kinematic eddy model as resulting from differences in the structure of wind anomalies in the directions along and across eddy paths. The tropical anisotropy is interpreted in terms of the kinematics of large-scale equatorial waves and small-scale convection. Modeling the vector wind fluctuations as Gaussian, an explicit expression for the wind speed acf is obtained. This model predicts that the wind speed acf should decay more rapidly than that of at least one component of the vector winds. Furthermore, the model predicts a strong dependence of the wind speed acf on the ratios of the means of vector wind components to their standard deviations. These model results are shown to be broadly consistent with the relationship between the acf of vector wind components and wind speed, despite the presence of non-Gaussian structure in the observed surface vector winds.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 839 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yury Yurovsky ◽  
Vladimir Kudryavtsev ◽  
Semyon Grodsky ◽  
Bertrand Chapron

Multi-year field measurements of sea surface Ka-band dual-co-polarized (vertical transmit–receive polarization (VV) and horizontal transmit–receive polarization (HH)) radar Doppler characteristics from an oceanographic platform in the Black Sea are presented. The Doppler centroid (DC) estimated using the first moment of 5 min averaged spectrum, corrected for measured sea surface current, ranges between 0 and ≈1 m/s for incidence angles increasing from 0 to 70 ∘ . Besides the known wind-to-radar azimuth dependence, the DC can also depend on wind-to-dominant wave direction. For co-aligned wind and waves, a negative crosswind DC residual is found, ≈−0.1 m/s, at ≈20 ∘ incidence angle, becoming negligible at ≈ 60 ∘ , and raising to, ≈+0.5 m/s, at 70 ∘ . For our observations, with a rather constant dominant wave length, the DC is almost wind independent. Yet, results confirm that, besides surface currents, the DC encodes an expected wave-induced contribution. To help the interpretation, a two-scale model (KaDOP) is proposed to fit the observed DC, based on the radar modulation transfer function (MTF) previously developed for the same data set. Assuming universal spectral shape of energy containing sea surface waves, the wave-induced DC contribution is then expressed as a function of MTF, significant wave height, and wave peak frequency. The resulting KaDOP agrees well with independent DC data, except for swell-dominated cases. The swell impact is estimated using the KaDOP with a modified empirical MTF.


2008 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 670-685 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. J. Walsh ◽  
C. W. Wright ◽  
M. L. Banner ◽  
D. C. Vandemark ◽  
B. Chapron ◽  
...  

Abstract During the Southern Ocean Waves Experiment (SOWEX), registered ocean wave topography and backscattered power data at Ka band (36 GHz) were collected with the NASA Scanning Radar Altimeter (SRA) off the coast of Tasmania under a wide range of wind and sea conditions, from quiescent to gale-force winds with 9-m significant wave height. Collection altitude varied from 35 m to over 1 km, allowing determination of the sea surface mean square slope (mss), the directional wave spectrum, and the detailed variation of backscattered power with incidence angle, which deviated from a simple Gaussian scattering model. The non-Gaussian characteristics of the backscatter increased systematically with the mss, suggesting that a global model to characterize Ka-band radar backscatter from the sea surface within 25° of nadir might be possible.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (12) ◽  
pp. 3598
Author(s):  
Sara Russo ◽  
Pasquale Contestabile ◽  
Andrea Bardazzi ◽  
Elisa Leone ◽  
Gregorio Iglesias ◽  
...  

New large-scale laboratory data are presented on a physical model of a spar buoy wind turbine with angular motion of control surfaces implemented (pitch control). The peculiarity of this type of rotating blade represents an essential aspect when studying floating offshore wind structures. Experiments were designed specifically to compare different operational environmental conditions in terms of wave steepness and wind speed. Results discussed here were derived from an analysis of only a part of the whole dataset. Consistent with recent small-scale experiments, data clearly show that the waves contributed to most of the model motions and mooring loads. A significant nonlinear behavior for sway, roll and yaw has been detected, whereas an increase in the wave period makes the wind speed less influential for surge, heave and pitch. In general, as the steepness increases, the oscillations decrease. However, higher wind speed does not mean greater platform motions. Data also indicate a significant role of the blade rotation in the turbine thrust, nacelle dynamic forces and power in six degrees of freedom. Certain pairs of wind speed-wave steepness are particularly unfavorable, since the first harmonic of the rotor (coupled to the first wave harmonic) causes the thrust force to be larger than that in more energetic sea states. The experiments suggest that the inclusion of pitch-controlled, variable-speed blades in physical (and numerical) tests on such types of structures is crucial, highlighting the importance of pitch motion as an important design factor.


1975 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 667-687 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. D. McEwan ◽  
R. M. Robinson

A continuously stratified fluid, when subjected to a weak periodic horizontal acceleration, is shown to be susceptible to a form of parametric instability whose time dependence is described, in its simplest form, by the Mathieu equation. Such an acceleration could be imposed by a large-scale internal wave field. The growth rates of small-scale unstable modes may readily be determined as functions of the forcing-acceleration amplitude and frequency. If any such mode has a natural frequency near to half the forcing frequency, the forcing amplitude required for instability may be limited in smallness only by internal viscous dissipation. Greater amplitudes are required when boundaries constrain the form of the modes, but for a given bounding geometry the most unstable mode and its critical forcing amplitude can be defined.An experiment designed to isolate the instability precisely confirms theoretical predictions, and evidence is given from previous experiments which suggest that its appearance can be the penultimate stage before the traumatic distortion of continuous stratifications under internal wave action.A preliminary calculation, using the Garrett & Munk (197%) oceanic internal wave spectrum, indicates that parametric instability could occur in the ocean at scales down to that of the finest observed microstructure, and may therefore have a significant role to play in its formation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuan Gao ◽  
Changlong Guan ◽  
Jian Sun ◽  
Lian Xie

In contrast to co-polarization (VV or HH) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images, cross-polarization (CP for VH or HV) SAR images can be used to retrieve sea surface wind speeds larger than 20 m/s without knowing the wind directions. In this paper, a new wind speed retrieval model is proposed for European Space Agency (ESA) Sentinel-1A (S-1A) Extra-Wide swath (EW) mode VH-polarized images. Nineteen S-1A images under tropical cyclone condition observed in the 2016 hurricane season and the matching data from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) radiometer are collected and divided into two datasets. The relationships between normalized radar cross-section (NRCS), sea surface wind speed, wind direction and radar incidence angle are analyzed for each sub-band, and an empirical retrieval model is presented. To correct the large biases at the center and at the boundaries of each sub-band, a corrected model with an incidence angle factor is proposed. The new model is validated by comparing the wind speeds retrieved from S-1A images with the wind speeds measured by SMAP. The results suggest that the proposed model can be used to retrieve wind speeds up to 35 m/s for sub-bands 1 to 4 and 25 m/s for sub-band 5.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Ubl ◽  
Martin Scheringer

<p>Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are persistent and hazardous chemicals that are still detected in the atmosphere and other environmental compartments although their production was banned several decades ago. At the Great Lakes region PCBs have been monitored via the IADN network since 1993. In this study, we report results from seven different PCB congeners measured at six different sites around the Great Lakes. The PCBs exhibit a strong seasonal cycle with highest concentrations in summer and lowest concentrations in winter. The concentrations measured in Chicago and Cleveland are higher compared to the concentrations reported from more remote stations. We evaluated the correlations for the seven PCB congeners at each station. PCB-53,-101,-118 and -138 are highly correlated at each of the six stations. PCB-180 is the least correlated with all the other PCBs. This is explicitly true for Eagle Harbor, where PCB-180 and -153 are not correlated with the other 6 PCBs. This may be explained by the less pronounced seasonal cycle of these heavier PCBs at Eagle Harbor. We observed significant correlations between PCB-28 concentrations at the remote stations, but PCB concentrations at the stations of Chicago and Cleveland are only poorly correlated with PCB concentrations at the other stations. The weak correlation of the PCB concentrations measured at the different stations and the relatively high concentrations of the PCB congeners at each station indicate that local conditions and small scale processes (sources, temperature, wind direction, wind speed) dictate the spatial distribution of the  PCBs. We will feed available data on temperature, wind speed, wind direction, emissions, precipitation, ice cover of the Great Lakes and large scale atmospheric teleconnection patterns into a General Additive Model (GAM) to further investigate the relationships between the measured PCB concentrations and selected environmental conditions and atmospheric parameters.<span> </span></p>


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-40
Author(s):  
Kim Dasol ◽  
Chang-Hoi Ho ◽  
Hiroyuki Murakami ◽  
Doo-Sun R. Park

AbstractUnderstanding the mechanisms related to the variations in the rainfall structure of tropical cyclones (TCs) is crucial in improving forecasting systems of TC rainfall and its impact. Using satellite precipitation and reanalysis data, we examined the influence of along-track large-scale environmental conditions on inner-core rainfall strength (RS) and total rainfall area (RA) for Atlantic TCs during the TC season (July to November) from 1998 to 2019. Factor analysis revealed three major factors associated with variations in RS and RA: large-scale low- and high-pressure systems (F1), environmental flows, sea surface temperature, and humidity (F2), and maximum wind speed of TCs (F3). Results from our study indicate that RS increases with an increase in the inherent primary circulation of TCs (i.e., F3), but is less affected by large-scale environmental conditions (i.e., F1 and F2), whereas RA is primarily influenced by large-scale low- and high-pressure systems (i.e., F1) over the entire North Atlantic and partially influenced by environmental flows, sea surface temperature, humidity, and maximum wind speed (i.e., F2 and F3). A multi-variable regression model based on the three factors accounted for the variations of RS and RA across the entire basin. In addition, regional distributions of mean RS and RA from the model significantly resembled those from observations. Therefore, our study suggests that large-scale environmental conditions over the North Atlantic are important predictors for TC rainfall forecasts, particularly regarding RA.


1995 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 409-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stig Jonsson

Between 18 January 1988 and 3 June 1989, an automatic weather station recorded 13 different weather parameters every 3 h on a blue-ice area located in Scharffenbergbotnen, a large cirque in central Heimefrontfjella 300 km from the Weddell Sea coast. The first part of the paper reports on annual and monthly data regarding air temperature, air pressure, wind speed and wind direction, and a comparison is also made with corresponding data from the Neumayer and Halley stations. The second part deals mainly with winter (i.e. April–September) conditions in Scharffenbergbotnen. They seem, at least during 1988–89, to have been characterized by a large-scale (30–40 days) and, superimposed on the large-scale, a small-scale (3–4 days) co-variation of air temperature, air pressure and wind speed. The large-scale variation was earlier found to be synoptically forced. This paper shows that synoptic forcing exists also on smaller time scales. Pools of cold, stagnant air are regularly formed in the cirque only to be blown away by katabatic winds triggered by small variations in the synoptic pressure field. When this happens the air temperature increases by more than 20°C and the wind direction swings from east towards south-east. When low pressures dominate in the eastern part of the Weddell Sea, the katabatic winds become very strong, but weaker wind pulses also take place when the synoptic pressure gradient is directed towards the north-east. It therefore seems as if these very regular katabatic events are forced both by synoptic-scale pressure gradients and gradients due to the sloped inversion.


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