SAR Image Simulation Method for Oceanic Eddies

Abstract

Oceanic eddies, which play an important role in ocean thermal cycling, is a significant branch of oceanic scientific research. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) provides a large number of images for the observation and investigation of oceanic eddies. However, SAR imagery of oceanic eddies is affected by various environmental factors; as such, it is difficult to interpret eddy features from SAR images. Alternatively, simulated SAR images can be used to investigate eddy features; however, few methods have been established for simulating SAR images for oceanic eddies. To better interpret the eddy features in real SAR images, an SAR image simulation method for oceanic eddies is proposed in this paper. First, a two-dimensional eddy surface current field was built based on the Burgers-Rott vortex model in hydrodynamics; SAR eddy images were then simulated according to the given eddy current field, wind field, and radar parameters. Images of cyclonic and anticyclonic eddies were simulated and evaluated. In addition, a standard for evaluating the similarity between real and simulated SAR eddy images was established. The features of the simulated SAR eddy images show good similarity with the real SAR eddy images, which validates the effectiveness of the proposed simulation method.

Keywords

• Oceanic eddies
• Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images
• Burgers-Rott vortex model
• Image simulation