Impact of emulsification of crude oil on normalized radar cross section

The emulsification of crude oil is caused by the oil flowing into the water,resulting in the increase of oil film tension,viscosity,water content,and volume,which brings great harm to the marine ecological environment and difficulties for the cleanup of marine emergency equipment.The realization observation of emulsification crude oil will increase the response speed of marine emergency response.Therefore,we set up crude oil emulsification samples to study the physical property in laboratory and conducted radar measurements at different incidence angles in outdoor.The radar is C band in resolution of 0.7 m by 0.7 m.A fully polarimetric scatterometer(HH,VV,and VH/HV)is mounted at 1.66 m(minimum altitude)height at an incidence angle between 35°and 60°.An asphalt content of less than 3%crude oil and the filtered seawater were used to the outdoor emulsification scattering experiment.The measurement results are as follows.The water content can be used to describe the process of emulsification and it is easy to measure.Wind speed,asphalt content,seawater temperature,and photo-oxidation affect the emulsifying process of crude oil,and affects the normalized radar cross section(NRCS)of oil film but wind is not the dominant factor.It is the first time to find that the emulsification of crude oil results in an increase of NRCS.

Study of the ability of SWOT to detect sea surface height changes caused by internal solitary waves

Surface Water and Ocean Topography(SWOT)is a next-generation radar altimeter that offers high resolution,wide swath,imaging capabilities.It has provided free public data worldwide since December 2023.This paper aims to preliminarily analyze the detection capabilities of the Ka-band radar interferometer(KaRIn)and Nadir altimeter(NALT),which are carried out by SWOT for internal solitary waves(ISWs),and to gather other remote sensing images to validate SWOT observations.KaRIn effectively detects ISW surface features and generates surface height variation maps reflecting the modulations induced by ISWs.However,its swath width does not completely cover the entire wave packet,and the resolution of L2/L3 level products(about 2 km)cannot be used to identify ISWs with smaller wavelengths.Additionally,significant wave height(SWH)images exhibit blocky structures that are not suitable for ISW studies;sea surface height anomaly(SSHA)images display systematic leftright banding.We optimize this imbalance using detrending methods;however,more precise treatment should commence with L1-level data.Quantitative analysis based on L3-level SSHA data indicates that the average SSHA variation induced by ISWs ranges from 10 cm to 20 cm.NALTs disturbed by ISWs record unusually elevated SWH and SSHA values,rendering the data unsuitable for analysis and necessitating targeted corrections in future retracking algorithms.For the normalized radar cross section,Ku-band and four-parameter maximum likelihood estimation retracking demonstrated greater sensitivity to minor changes in the sea surface,making them more suitable for ISW detection.In conclusion,SWOT demonstrates outstanding capabilities in ISW detection,significantly advancing research on the modulation of the sea surface by ISWs and remote sensing imaging mechanisms.

Sea Surface Roughness Derivation from Wind Speed Estimated by Satellite Altimeter

For open sea conditions the sea surface roughness is described as a function of surface stress and wind speed over sea surface by Charnock relation. The sea surface roughnessn in the North-west Pacific Ocean is derived successfully using wind speed data estimated by the TOPEX satellite altimeter. From the results we find that： （1） the mean sea surface roughness in winter is greater than in summer; （2） compared with other sea areas, the sea surface roughness in the sea area east of Japan （ N30°- 40°, E135°- 150°） is larger than in other sea areas; （3） sea surface roughness in the South China Sea changes more greatly than that in the Bohai Sea, Yellow Sea and East China Sea.

Experimental research on oil fi lm thickness and its microwave scattering during emulsifi cation

Synthetic Aperture Radar(SAR) plays a major role in identifying oil spills on the sea surface.However,obtaining information of oil spill thickness(volume) is still a challenge.Emulsification is an important process affecting the thickness and normalized radar cross section(NRCS) of oil film.Experiments of crude oil emulsification with C-band fully-polarized scatterometer were conducted combining airborne hyperspectral imaging spectrometer and 3 D laser scanner observation data,to provide experimental parameters and method to support accurate remote sensing monitoring on marine oil spill.It is further proved that through quantitative homogeneous emulsified oil spill experiments,to a certain extent,the NRCS of oil film increased during the emulsification process of crude oil.The backscattering mechanism of crude oil emulsification was explored using a semi-empirical model(SEM);the change of oil film NRCS was modulated by its dielectric constant and surface roughness,in which the dielectric constant showed a dominant effect.The relationship between thickness and NRCS of oil film was studied under two experimental conditions.The differences of NRCS between oil film and adjacent seawater(Δσ~0) and the damping ratio(DR) were found to have a linear relationship with oil thickness,which were best in the vertical polarization mode(VV) at 45° incident angle during the quantitative crude oil homogeneous emulsification process.In the natural emulsification process of continuous oil spill in which oil film was mixed with both crude oil and emulsified oil,an empirical equation of oil film thickness is preliminarily established.The Δσ~0,DR,and the empirical equation of oil film thickness were applied to the marine continuous oil spill incident on a 19-3 oil platform with spaceborne SAR image and successfully explained the distribution of the relative thickness of the oil film.

Electromagnetic backscattering from one-dimensional drifting fractal sea surface Ⅱ：Electromagnetic backscattering model

Sea surface current has a significant influence on electromagnetic（EM） backscattering signals and may constitute a dominant synthetic aperture radar（SAR） imaging mechanism. An effective EM backscattering model for a one-dimensional drifting fractal sea surface is presented in this paper. This model is used to simulate EM backscattering signals from the drifting sea surface. Numerical results show that ocean currents have a significant influence on EM backscattering signals from the sea surface. The normalized radar cross section（NRCS） discrepancies between the model for a coupled wavecurrent fractal sea surface and the model for an uncoupled fractal sea surface increase with the increase of incidence angle,as well as with increasing ocean currents. Ocean currents that are parallel to the direction of the wave can weaken the EM backscattering signal intensity, while the EM backscattering signal is intensified by ocean currents propagating oppositely to the wave direction. The model presented in this paper can be used to study the SAR imaging mechanism for a drifting sea surface.

Repair wind field in oil contaminated areas with SAR images

In this paper,we compared the normalized radar cross section in the cases of oil spill,biogenic slicks,and clean sea areas with image samples made from 11-pixel NRCS average,and determined their thresholds of the NRCS of the synthetic aperture radar. The results show that the thresholds of oil and biogenic slicks exhibit good consistency with the corresponding synthetic aperture radar images. In addition,we used the normalized radar cross section of clean water from adjacent patches of oil or biogenic slicks areas to replace that of oil or biogenic slicks areas,and retrieve wind field by CMOD5.n and compare wind velocity mending of oil and biogenic slicks areas with Weather Research and Forecasting modeled data,from which the root mean squares of wind speed(wind direction) inversion are 0.89 m/s(20.26°) and 0.88 m/s(7.07°),respectively. Therefore,after the occurrence of oil spill or biogenic slicks,the real wind field could be repaired using the method we introduced in this paper. We believe that this method could improve the accuracy in assessment of a real wind field on medium and small scales at sea,and enhance effectively the monitoring works on similar oil or biogenic slicks incidents at sea surface.

First assessment of Noise-Equivalent Sigma-Zero in GF3-02 TOPSAR mode with sea surface wind speed retrieval

Gaofen-3-02(GF3-02)is the first C-band synthetic aperture radar(SAR)satellite with terrain observation with progressive scans of SAR(TOPSAR)imaging mode in China,which plays an essential role in marine environment monitoring.Given the weak scattering characteristics of the ocean,the system thermal noise superimposed on SAR images has significant interference,especially in cross-polarization channels.Noise-Equivalent Sigma-Zero(NESZ)is a measure of the sensitivity of the radar to areas of low backscatter.The NESZ is defined to be the scattering cross-section coefficient of an area which contributes a mean level in the image equal to the signal-independent additive noise level.For TOPSAR,NESZ exhibits the shape of the SAR scanning gain curve in the azimuth and the shape of the antenna pattern in the range.Therefore,the accurate measurement of NESZ plays a vital role in the application of spaceborne SAR sea surface cross-polarization data.This paper proposes a theoretical calculation method for the NESZ curve in GF3-02 TOPSAR mode based on SAR noise inner calibration data and the imaging algorithm.A method for correcting the error existing in the theoretical curve of NESZ is also proposed according to the relationship between sea surface backscattering and wind speed and the same characteristics of target scattering in the overlapping area of adjacent sub-swaths.According to assessment with wide-swath TOPSAR cross-polarization data,the GF3-02 TOPSAR mode has a very low thermal noise level,which is better than−33 dB at the edge of each beam,and controlled below−38 dB at the center of the beam.The two-dimensional reference curves of the NESZ of each beam are provided to the GF3-02 TOPSAR users.After discussing the relationship between normalized radar cross section(NRCS)and wind speed,we provide a formula for NRCS related to wind speed and radar incidence angle.Compared with the NRCS derived from this formula and the NESZ-subtracted NRCS of SAR images,the bias is−0.0048 dB,the Root Mean Square Error is 1.671 dB and the correlation coefficient is 0.939.