A mission for measuring ocean surface current vectors

Inhalt:
Synoptic maps of total ocean surface currents from space are needed to improve the parameterisations of oceanic mesoscale and sub-mesoscale dynamics and represent their impact on global ocean circulation, air-sea exchanges and ocean biogeochemistry. An Ocean Surface Current Mission candidate for the Earth Explorer programme is presented. The mission makes use of a Ku-band Along-Track Interferometric SAR instrument with squinted beams to co-temporally measure the total surface current velocity (TSCV), surface wind velocity and wave spectral information at high spatial scales from a single spaceborne platform. It offers measurements of the total ocean surface current vector in a single-pass.