CISS 2023

Title: Spaceborne SAR Remote Sensing for Mesoscale to Submesoscale Oceanography

Abstract: The submesoscale process is a critical link in the energy balance of the ocean. It serves as a bridge for energy transfer from quasi-geostrophic mesoscale processes to nongeostrophic small-scale movements. Due to its significant vertical movement, submesoscale processes are considered an essential channel for transporting nutrients to the auroral layer. They play a crucial role in the primary productivity and carbon source and sink of global marine ecosystems. The spatial scale of submesoscale processes is small, with rapid temporal changes and a lack of systematic observation for a long time. There is a lack of understanding of their spatial structure, and it is also difficult to quantitatively evaluate their biogeochemical effects. Satellite remote sensing, especially synthetic aperture radar (SAR), has become an indispensable data source for monitoring submesoscale ocean processes due to its advantages of all-weather, all-weather, large-scale, and global observation. This report will focus on the scientific research progress in modeling complex sea surface morphology and its electromagnetic scattering mechanism, simulating sea surface radar imaging of ocean phenomena, and detecting and parameter inversion of typical ocean phenomena using SAR images. It will introduce new technologies, methods, and applications of SAR satellite remote sensing data in remote sensing of typical submesoscale processes such as ocean internal waves, eddies, and fronts. It will also prospect the development trends of ocean remote sensing from spaceborne SAR observations.

Xiaofeng Yang, professor and deputy director of the State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, Aerospace Information Innovation Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research focuses on the mechanism and methods of ocean remote sensing, the process of sea-air interactions, and quantitative ocean remote sensing. He has published over 130 peer-reviewed papers and 2 English books. Currently, he is serving as the Specialty Symposia Chair of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (IEEE-GRSS), Deputy Secretary-General of the Chinese Society of Space Research and Chairman of the Youth Working Committee, Member of the Quantitative Remote Sensing Special Committee of the Chinese Association for Remote Sensing Applications, and Member of the Digital Oceans Committee of the Chinese National Committee of the International Society for Digital Earth. Dr. Yang is an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing and MDPI's Remote Sensing and an Editorial Board Member of the Chinese Journal of Space Science and Remote Sensing Technology and Applications.