SWIM: The First Spaceborne Wave Scatterometer

Hauser, Danièle; Tison, C.; Amiot, Thierry; Delaye, Lauriane; Corcoral, Nathalie; Castillan, Patrick

doi:10.1109/tgrs.2017.2658672

Cited by 122 publications

(128 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…New and future satellites such as CFOSAT (Hauser et al, 2017) and SKIM should be able to go beyond these "First 5, " with unprecedented directional resolution, but their temporal sampling cannot make them the backbone of a sea state monitoring system. Still, such new data can provide a transformation of our understanding and advance our numerical modeling capabilities.…”

Section: Updating Requirements For Sea State Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A new type of instrument, called a 'wave spectrometer' by Jackson et al (1985), was successfully launched for the first time on a satellite, on 29 October 2018, with the SWIM instrument on CFOSAT (Hauser et al, 2017).…”

Section: Satellite Remote Sensingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other applications have developed very localized measurement systems, in particular for coastal hazards and beach morphodynamics (e.g., Holman and Stanley, 2007). Except for the recent launch of CFOSAT (Hauser et al, 2017), measuring ocean waves has not been the primary goal for satellite missions. Still, these data are very useful but the observing system has not been optimized to sample storms in space and time.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Observing Sea States

et al. 2019

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Sea state information is needed for many applications, ranging from safety at sea and on the coast, for which real time data are essential, to planning and design needs for infrastructure that require long time series. The definition of the wave climate and its possible evolution requires high resolution data, and knowledge on possible drift in the observing system. Sea state is also an important climate variable that enters in air-sea fluxes parameterizations. Finally, sea state patterns can reveal the intensity of storms and associated climate patterns at large scales, and the intensity of currents at small scales. A synthesis of user requirements leads to requests for spatial resolution at kilometer scales, and estimations of trends of a few centimeters per decade. Such requirements cannot be met by observations alone in the foreseeable future, and numerical wave models can be combined with in situ and remote sensing data to achieve the required resolution. As today's models are far from perfect, observations are critical in providing forcing data, namely winds, currents and ice, and validation data, in particular for frequency and direction information, and extreme wave heights. In situ and satellite observations are particularly critical for the correction and calibration of significant wave heights to ensure the stability of model time series. A number of developments are underway for extending the capabilities of satellites and in situ observing systems. These include the generalization of directional measurements, an easier exchange of moored buoy data, the measurement of waves on drifting buoys, the evolution of satellite altimeter technology, and the measurement of directional wave spectra from satellite radar instruments. For each of these observing systems, the stability of the data is a very important issue. The combination of the different data sources, including numerical models, can help better fulfill the needs of users.

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Section: Updating Requirements For Sea State Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Satellite Remote Sensingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Observing Sea States

et al. 2019

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“…In the near future, it is expected that forthcoming satellites will bring a direct measurement of the dominant period in most sea state. This is the case of the SWIM instrument on CFOSAT (Hauser et al, 2017), to be launched in October 2018. The proposed SKIM satellite would go a step further in resolving the dominant waves even in enclosed seas .…”

Section: Wind-wave Observationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coastal Sea Level and Related Fields from Existing Observing Systems

et al. 2019

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We review the status of current sea-level observing systems with a focus on the coastal zone. Tide gauges are the major source of coastal sea-level observations monitoring most of the world coastlines, although with limited extent in Africa and part of South America. The longest tide gauge records, however, are unevenly distributed and mostly concentrated along the European and North American coasts. Tide gauges measure relative sea level but the monitoring of vertical land motion through highprecision GNSS, despite being essential to disentangle land and ocean contributions in tide gauge records, is only available in a limited number of stations (25% of tide gauges have a GNSS station at less than 10 km). Other data sources are new in-situ observing systems fostered by recent progress in GNSS data processing (e.g. GPS reflectometry, GNSS-towed platforms) and coastal altimetry currently measuring sea level as close as 5 km from the coastline. Understanding observed coastal sea level also requires information on various contributing processes, and we provide an overview of some other relevant observing systems, including those on (offshore and coastal) wind-waves and water density and mass changes.

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“…In earlier considerations, the use of different antenna configurations has been considered, including both fixed-and rotating antenna systems, with or without horizontal stabilization, with measurements performed during either circular or rectilinear flight [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. While our previous research largely focused on the possibility of using various existing onboard equipment for overall cost reduction [17][18][19][20], no systematic comparison of both the accuracy and performance of the measurement algorithms for different antenna configurations has been done.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimization of Airborne Antenna Geometry for Ocean Surface Scatterometric Measurements

et al. 2018

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We consider different antenna configurations, ranging from simple X-configuration to multi-beam star geometries, for airborne scatterometric measurements of the wind vector near the ocean surface. For all geometries, track-stabilized antenna configurations, as well as horizontal transmitter and receiver polarizations, are considered. The wind vector retrieval algorithm is generalized here for an arbitrary star geometry antenna configuration and tested using the Ku-Band geophysical model function. Using Monte Carlo simulations for the fixed total measurement time, we show explicitly that the relative wind speed estimation accuracy barely depends on the chosen antenna geometry, while the maximum wind direction retrieval error reduces moderately with increasing angular resolution, although at the cost of increased retrieval algorithm computational complexity, thus, limiting online analysis options with onboard equipment. Remarkably, the simplest X-configuration, while the simplest in terms of hardware implementation and computational time, appears an outlier, yielding considerably higher maximum retrieval errors when compared to all other configurations. We believe that our results are useful for the optimization of both hardware and software design for modern airborne scatterometric measurement systems based on tunable antenna arrays especially, those requiring online data processing.

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SWIM: The First Spaceborne Wave Scatterometer

Cited by 122 publications

References 29 publications

Observing Sea States

Observing Sea States

Coastal Sea Level and Related Fields from Existing Observing Systems

Optimization of Airborne Antenna Geometry for Ocean Surface Scatterometric Measurements

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