Retrieval of Antarctic sea ice freeboard and thickness from HY-2B satellite altimeter data

Antarctic sea ice is an important part of the Earth’s atmospheric system,and satellite remote sensing is an important technology for observing Antarctic sea ice.Whether Chinese Haiyang-2B(HY-2B)satellite altimeter data could be used to estimate sea ice freeboard and provide alternative Antarctic sea ice thickness information with a high precision and long time series,as other radar altimetry satellites can,needs further investigation.This paper proposed an algorithm to discriminate leads and then retrieve sea ice freeboard and thickness from HY-2B radar altimeter data.We first collected the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer ice surface temperature(IST)product from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to extract leads from the Antarctic waters and verified their accuracy through Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar images.Second,a surface classification decision tree was generated for HY-2B satellite altimeter measurements of the Antarctic waters to extract leads and calculate local sea surface heights.We then estimated the Antarctic sea ice freeboard and thickness based on local sea surface heights and the static equilibrium equation.Finally,the retrieved HY-2B Antarctic sea ice thickness was compared with the CryoSat-2 sea ice thickness and the Antarctic Sea Ice Processes and Climate(ASPeCt)ship-based observed sea ice thickness.The results indicate that our classification decision tree constructed for HY-2B satellite altimeter measurements was reasonable,and the root mean square error of the obtained sea ice thickness compared to the ship measurements was 0.62 m.The proposed sea ice thickness algorithm for the HY-2B radar satellite fills a gap in this application domain for the HY-series satellites and can be a complement to existing Antarctic sea ice thickness products;this algorithm could provide long-time-series and large-scale sea ice thickness data that contribute to research on global climate change.

Ocean Observation from Haiyang Satellites: 2012–2014

During 2012 and 2014, China has two Haiyang(which means ocean in Chinese, referred to as HY) satellites operating normally in space which are HY-1B and HY-2A. HY-1B is an ocean color environment satellite which was launched in April 2007 to observe global ocean color and sea surface temperature, and HY-2A is an ocean dynamic environment satellite which was launched in August 2011 to obtain global marine dynamic environment parameters including sea surface height,significant wave height, ocean wind vectors, etc. Ocean observation data provided by HY-1B and HY-2A have been widely used by both domestic and international users in extensive areas such as ocean environment protection, ocean disaster prevention and reduction, marine environment forecast,ocean resource development and management, ocean investigations and scientific researches, etc.

Ocean Observation from Haiyang Satellites

In 2018,China successfully launched three new Haiyang(which means ocean in Chinese,referred to as HY)satellites which are an ocean color observation satellite HY-1C(operational),an ocean dynamics environment satellite HY-2B(operational)and the China-France ocean satellite CFOSAT(experimental).In 2019,all the three satellites had finished their commissioning phases and were declared operational.HY-2A satellite continues to operate in-orbit,and its operational status is basically normal.So in 2020,China has 4 Haiyang satellites in-orbit,China’s ocean satellites enter into a new operational application phase.The operation of the ground application system of Chinese ocean satellites is stable.In 2019,Beijing,Hainan,Mudanjiang,and Hangzhou ocean satellite ground stations had received the data of HY-1C,HY-2A,HY-2B,and CFOSAT 5012 orbits and 26.46 TB data had been distributed to both domestic and international users.Chinese ocean satellite data has played an important role in marine disaster prevention and mitigation,development and management of marine resources,maintenance of marine rights and interests,marine environment protection,scientific researches,and blue economy development.

LM-3B Successfully Launched Communications Technology Test Satellite 2

At 23:18 Beijing time on January 5,a LM-3B carrier rocket lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center,sending a communication technology test satellite into its preset orbit.This successful launch was a good start for China’s launch missions in 2017.The Communications Technology Test Satellite 2 was developed by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology.It is a next-generation telecom-

Using multi-satellite microwave remote sensing observations for retrieval of daily surface soil moisture across China

The objective of this study was to retrieve daily composite soil moisture by jointly using brightness temperature observations from multiple operating satellites for near real-time application with better coverage and higher accuracy.Our approach was to first apply the single-channel brightness radiometric algorithm to estimate soil moisture from the respective brightness temperature observations of the SMAP,SMOS,AMSR2,FY3B,and FY3C satellites on the same day and then produce a daily composite dataset by averaging the individual satellite-retrieved soil moisture.We further evaluated our product,the official soil moisture products of the five satellites,and the ensemble mean (i.e.,arithmetic mean) of the five official satellite soil moisture products against ground observations from two networks in Central Tibet and Anhui Province,China.The results show that our product outperforms the individual released products of the five satellites and their ensemble means in the two validation areas.The root mean square error (RMSE ) values of our product were 0.06 and 0.09 m3/m3 in Central Tibet and Anhui Province,respectively.Relative to the ensemble mean of the five satellite products,our product improves the accuracy by 9.1% and 57.7% in Central Tibet and Anhui Province,respectively.This demonstrates that jointly using brightness temperature observations from multiple satellites to retrieve soil moisture not only improves the spatial coverage of daily observations but also produces better daily composite products.

Photosynthetically active radiation retrieval based on HJ-1A/B satellite data

Photosynthetically active radiation(PAR) is essential for plant photosynthesis and carbon cycle,and is also important for meteorological and environmental monitoring.To advance China's disaster and environmental monitoring capabilities,the HJ-1A/B satellites have been placed in Earth orbit.One of their environmental monitoring objectives is the study of PAR.We simulated direct solar,scattered and environment radiation between 400 and 700 nm under different atmospheric parameters(solar zenith angle,atmospheric water vapor,atmospheric ozone,aerosol optical thickness,surface elevation and surface albedo),and then established a look-up table between these input parameters and PAR.Based on the look-up table,we used HJ-1A/B aerosol and surface albedo outputs to derive the corresponding PAR.Validation of inversed instantaneous and observed PAR values using HJ-1 Heihe experimental data had a root mean square error of 25.2 W m-2,with a relative error of 5.9%.The root mean square error for accumulated daily PAR and observed values was 0.49 MJ m-2,with a relative error of 3.5%.Our approach improved significantly the computational efficiency,compared with using directly radiation transfer equations.We also studied the sensitivity of various input parameters to photosynthetically active radiation,and found that solar zenith angle and atmospheric aerosols were sensitive PAR parameters.Surface albedo had some effect on PAR,but water vapor and ozone had minimal impact on PAR.

阴影植被指数SVI的构建及其在四种遥感影像中的应用效果

阴影是遥感影像中普遍存在的干扰因素,如何有效去除阴影已成为共识,寻找一个有效的阴影检测指标是实现影像阴影去除的基础工作。以Landsat TM,ALOS AVNIR-2,CBERS。02B CCD及HJ-1 CCD影像为试验数据,立足于进一步增大阴影区植被与明亮区植被、水体间的差异,实现影像阴影的有效检测,构建了一个新的植被指数——阴影植被指数SVI,该指数既可保证明亮区植被、阴影区植被、水体区在近红外波段的绝对差异,又能对NDVI进行放大,消除可能存在的混淆现象,改变NDVI直方图的"偏态"现象,使植被指数值更接近于正态分布,更符合地面实际;该指数适用于近红外波段辐射特征差异较大的地物。采用精度评估法验证SVI对明亮区植被、阴影区植被、水体区三类地物的识别效果,结果显示,四幅影像总分类精度依次高达98.89%,100%,97.78%,97.78%,总Kappa系数依次为0.983 3,1,0.966 7,0.966 7,说明SVI对明亮区植被、阴影区植被及水体区具有极好的检测效果;对子影像、SVI与NDVI的统计指标对比亦说明,SVI可靠、有效,可以将其应用于影像阴影去除。