Keywords

Ocean Emissivity, Microwave Remote Sensing, Radiometry, Hurricane Observation, HIRAD, SFMR

Abstract

An electromagnetic model is developed for predicting the microwave blackbody emission from the ocean surface over a wide range of frequencies, incidence angles, and wind vector (speed and direction) for both horizontal and vertical polarizations. This ocean surface emissivity model is intended to be incorporated into an oceanic radiative transfer model to be used for microwave radiometric applications including geophysical retrievals over oceans. The model development is based on a collection of published ocean emissivity measurements obtained from satellites, aircraft, field experiments, and laboratory measurements. This dissertation presents the details of methods used in the ocean surface emissivity model development and comparisons with current emissivity models and aircraft radiometric measurements in hurricanes. Especially, this empirically derived ocean emissivity model relates changes in vertical and horizontal polarized ocean microwave brightness temperature measurements over a wide range of observation frequencies and incidence angles to physical roughness changes in the ocean surface, which are the result of the air/sea interaction with surface winds. Of primary importance are the Stepped Frequency Microwave Radiometer (SFMR) brightness temperature measurements from hurricane flights and independent measurements of surface wind speed that are used to define empirical relationships between C-band (4 - 7 GHz) microwave brightness temperature and surface wind speed. By employing statistical regression techniques, we develop a physical-based ocean emissivity model with empirical coefficients that depends on geophysical parameters, such as wind speed, wind direction, sea surface temperature, and observational parameters, such as electromagnetic frequency, electromagnetic polarization, and incidence angle.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2010

Advisor

Jones, W. Linwood

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Department

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Degree Program

Electrical Engineering

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0003085

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0003085

Language

English

Release Date

May 2010

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access)

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