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INCUSAR—A Method to Retrieve Temporal Averages of 2D Ocean Surface Currents from Synthetic Aperture Radar Doppler Shift

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Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Earth System Sciences ((BRIEFSEARTHSYST))

Abstract

Within the last decade the Doppler anomaly retrieved from the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) has been demonstrated to be a useful resource for detection of ocean surface currents. As with any Doppler-based method, only the component along the instrument look direction can be retrieved at a time. It is here demonstrated how a time-averaged two-dimensional surface current field can be obtained from corresponding averages of surface current components detected along two non-orthogonal view angles, from respectively ascending and descending passes of the Envisat satellite. By a quantitative assessment of the involved uncertainties, an improved surface current field is obtained by merging the Doppler current with geostrophic current calculated from a climatological Mean Dynamic Topography.

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Correspondence to Knut-Frode Dagestad .

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Dagestad, KF., Hansen, M.W., Johannessen, J.A., Chapron, B. (2013). INCUSAR—A Method to Retrieve Temporal Averages of 2D Ocean Surface Currents from Synthetic Aperture Radar Doppler Shift. In: Remote Sensing Advances for Earth System Science. SpringerBriefs in Earth System Sciences. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32521-2_7

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