Numerical Study on Polarimetric SAR Imaging Response to Ocean Current

This paper investigates the C-band polarimetric SAR imaging response to ocean current at various wind and current velocities. The well-developed radar imaging model, which incorporates different scattering mechanisms of specular scattering, Bragg scattering and wave breaking effect, is employed for the numerical simulations. The current surface with a typical internal wave phenomenon generated by the MITgcm numerical mode is used. The KHCC03 spectrum is utilized in which the modulations by current and other dynamic factors are considered. The numerical results indicate that hydrodynamic modulation of ocean scattering is nonlinear to both wind and current velocities. For currents with high velocity, the modulation effects decreases with the increase of wind speed. However, this monotonic relationship is not applicable to the modulation effects of weak current, particularly for co-polarizations. At large current velocity, the current modulation effect at co-polarizations could be saturated.