A mission for measuring ocean surface current vectors

Conference: EUSAR 2016 - 11th European Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar
06/06/2016 - 06/09/2016 at Hamburg, Germany

Proceedings: EUSAR 2016

Pages: 4Language: englishTyp: PDF

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Authors:
Doody, Samuel; Marquez, Jose; Dobke, Ben (Airbus DS Ltd, UK)
Gommenginger, Christine; Martin, Adrien (National Oceanographic Centre, UK)

Abstract:
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.