Recent development in SAR-derived winds using polarized RADARSAT-2 data

We report the recent research progress on SAR winds retrieval using polarized RADARSAT-2 data. The two polarization ratio models were studied and applied for wind speed estimation using SAR image acquired at HH polarization. The wind speeds were also calculated utilizing VV-polarized SAR image and corresponding geophysical model function (GMF), and compared with buoy observations. We developed a cross-polarization ocean backscatter model for high wind speed retrieval. The hurricane wind vectors can be obtained by employing this model and the VV-polarized GMF. Moreover, we also presented a fully polarimetric SAR ocean vector winds retrieval approach. The wind direction ambiguities were removed with polarimetric correlation coefficients between co- and cross-polarized channels.