Dl. Schuler et al., POLARIMETRIC SAR IMAGE SIGNATURES OF THE OCEAN AND GULF-STREAM FEATURES, IEEE transactions on geoscience and remote sensing, 31(6), 1993, pp. 1210-1221
Polarimetric signatures and related polarimetric properties of microwa
ve ocean backscatter have been analyzed for both the ambient ocean and
for ocean features such as those associated with the Gulf Stream. Int
erpretation of the polarimetric signatures for the ocean surface was a
ccomplished using a tilted-Bragg theoretical model. This model was use
d to calculate the EM fields, to second order, necessary to compute th
e full Stokes matrix and, ultimately, the polarimetric signature. The
polarimetric studies led to a technique for potentially improving the
visibility of all azimuthally traveling waves in real-aperture radar (
RAR) images and, very long waves in synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) ima
ges. This technique utilizes linear polarization signatures to maximiz
e the instrument sensitivity to azimuthally traveling waves. Wave tilt
s create a modulation of the cell polarization orientation which, in t
urn, modulates the backscatter. Critical to the success of this techni
que are the properties that ocean polarimetric signatures are sharply
peaked (i.e., returns are highly polarized). The polarimetric contribu
tion to the overall modulation transfer function has also been evaluat
ed.