The L-band Ocean Salinity Airborne Campaign, LOSAC

摘要

Wind driven polarimetric signatures from the ocean surface have been studied by several scientific groups, using airborne radiometers. However, these studies have been concentrated at higher frequencies, typically Ku- and Ka-band. At these frequencies, the Stokes parameters show some Kelvin dependence on the azimuth look angle, when the wind speed exceeds a few meters per second. At L-band, there is only very little knowledge about eventual signatures, and this paper will describe the LOSAC, L-band Ocean Salinity Airborne Campaign, aiming at filling the void using the EMIRAD L-band radiometer. The campaign is a part of the preparation for the SMOS mission, and the overall interest is to understand the nature of the wind driven signatures in order to evaluate, if corrections are necessary prior to salinity estimations based on the radiometer signals.