INVESTIGATION OF ATMOSPHERIC GRAVITY WAVES AND OCEANIC INTERNAL WAVES USING ENVISAT SYNTHETIC APERTURE RADAR IMAGES

摘要

Atmospheric gravity waves (AGWs) and oceanicrninternal waves (OIWs) become visible on syntheticrnaperture radar (SAR) images acquired over the oceanrnbecause they modulate the short-scale sea surfacernroughness and thus the radar backscattering. Thernmodulation patterns visible on SAR images originatingrnfrom AGWs and OIWs often look quite similar. Criteriarnare presented how to discriminate between both types ofrnpatterns. Several examples of SAR images acquired byrnthe Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR)rnonboard the European Envisat satellite over the SouthrnChina Sea (SCS) are presented which show radarrnsignatures of AGWs and OIWs. The SAR images yieldrnvaluable information on the characteristics of both typesrnof waves. In particular, it is shown how SAR imagesrncan be used to provide evidence for a theory on therngeneration and propagation of short internal wavesrntrailing strong internal solitary waves in the northernrnSCS .