Sea Surface Salinity Remote Sensing

This Special Issue gathers papers reporting research on various aspects of remote sensing of Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) and the use of satellite SSS in oceanography. It includes contributions presenting improvements in empirical or theoretical radiative transfer models; mitigation techniques of external interference such as RFI and land contamination; comparisons and validation of remote sensing products with in situ observations; retrieval techniques for improved coastal SSS monitoring, high latitude SSS and the assessment of ocean interactions with the cryosphere; and data fusion techniques combining SSS with sea surface temperature (SST). New instrument technology for the future of SSS remote sensing is also presented.

This Special Issue gathers papers reporting research on various aspects of remote sensing of Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) and the use of satellite SSS in oceanography. It includes contributions presenting improvements in empirical or theoretical radiative transfer models; mitigation techniques of external interference such as RFI and land contamination; comparisons and validation of remote sensing products with in situ observations; retrieval techniques for improved coastal SSS monitoring, high latitude SSS and the assessment of ocean interactions with the cryosphere; and data fusion techniques combining SSS with sea surface temperature (SST). New instrument technology for the future of SSS remote sensing is also presented.

Remote Sensing of Ocean and Coastal Environments advances the scientific understanding and application of technologies to address a variety of areas relating to sustainable development, including environmental systems analysis, environmental management, clean processes, green chemistry and green engineering. Through each contributed chapter, the book covers ocean remote sensing, ocean color monitoring, modeling biomass and the carbon of oceanic ecosystems, sea surface temperature (SST) and sea surface salinity, ocean monitoring for oil spills and pollutions, coastal erosion and accretion measurement. This book is aimed at those with a common interest in oceanography techniques, sustainable development and other diverse backgrounds within earth and ocean science fields. This book is ideal for academicians, scientists, environmentalists, meteorologists, environmental consultants and computing experts working in the areas of earth and ocean sciences. Provides a comprehensive assessment of various ocean processes and their relative phenomena Includes graphical abstract and photosets in each chapter Presents literature reviews, case studies and applications

This book celebrates the ten-year anniversary of the Barcelona Expert Center by presenting recent contributions related to the topics on which the team has been working during these years. The Barcelona Expert Center expertise covers a wide variety of remote sensing fields, but the main focus of the research is on the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) data processing and its ocean, land, and ice applications. This book contains 14 scientific papers addressing topics that range from the description of the new data processing algorithms that are implemented in the last version of the operational SMOS Level 1 processor, to scientific applications derived from SMOS: results on the sea surface salinity assimilation in coastal models; synergies of the sea surface salinity with temperature and chlorophyll, and their impact on the better retrieval of ocean surface currents; quality assessment of SMOS derived sea ice thickness; sea surface salinity; and soil moisture products, among others. Moreover, one of the papers verifies the potential of the future CIMR mission within the CMEMS SSS operational production after the SMOS era.

Until the 1980s, a tacit agreement among many physical oceanographers was that nothing deserving attention could be found in the upper few meters of the ocean. The lack of adequete knowledge about the near-surface layer of the ocean was mainly due to the fact that the widely used oceanographic instruments (such as bathythermographs, CTDs, current meters, etc.) were practically useless in the upper few meters of the ocean. Interest in the ne- surface layer of the ocean rapidly increased along with the development of remote sensing techniques. The interpretation of ocean surface signals sensed from satellites demanded thorough knowledge of upper ocean processes and their connection to the ocean interior. Despite its accessibility to the investigator, the near-surface layer of the ocean is not a simple subject of experimental study. Random, sometimes huge, vertical motions of the ocean surface due to surface waves are a serious complication for collecting quality data close to the ocean surface. The supposedly minor problem of avoiding disturbances from ships’ wakes has frustrated several generations of oceanographers attempting to take reliable data from the upper few meters of the ocean. Important practical applications nevertheless demanded action, and as a result several pioneering works in the 1970s and 1980s laid the foundation for the new subject of oceanography – the near-surface layer of the ocean.

Fully updated, with significant new coverage of advances in satellite oceanography and results from new satellite missions, the second edition of this popular textbook introduces students to how remote sensing works, how to understand observations from Earth-observing systems, and the observations' importance to physical and biological oceanography. It provides full explanations of radiative transfer, ocean surface properties, satellite orbits, instruments and methods, visible remote sensing of biogeochemical properties, infrared and microwave retrieval of sea surface temperature, sea surface salinity retrieval, passive microwave measurements, scatterometer wind retrieval, altimetry and SAR. Also included are descriptions of the online archives where data can be obtained, and readers can obtain online tools for working with the data - enabling hands-on engagement with real-world observations. This is an ideal textbook for graduate and advanced undergraduate students in oceanography, remote sensing and environmental science, and a practical resource for researchers and professionals working with oceanographic satellite data.

The sun is a sufficiently strong source of radiation at L-band to be an important source of interference for radiometers on future satellite missions such as SMOS, Aquarius, and Hydros designed to monitor soil moisture and sea surface salinity. Radiation from the sun can impact passive remote sensing systems in several ways, including line-of-sight radiation that comes directly from the sun and enters through antenna side lobes and radiation that is reflected from the surface to the radiometer. Examples are presented in the case of Aquarius, a pushbroom radiometer with three beams designed to monitor sea surface salinity. Near solar minimum, solar contamination is not a problem unless the sun enters near the main beam. But near solar maximum, contamination from the sun equivalent to a change of salinity on the order of 0.1 psu can occur even when the signal enters in sidelobes far from the main beam.