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Interferometric radar measurement of ocean surface currents

Abstract

We describe a new method of measuring surface currents using an interferometric synthetic aperture radar. An airborne implementation has been tested over the San Francisco Bay near the time of maximum tidal flow, resulting in a map of the east-west component of the current. Only the line-of-sight component of velocity is measured by this technique. Where the signal-to-noise ratio was strongest, statistical fluctuations of less than 4 cm sāˆ’1 were observed for ocean patches of 60Ɨ60 m.

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Goldstein, R., Zebker, H. Interferometric radar measurement of ocean surface currents. Nature 328, 707ā€“709 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1038/328707a0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/328707a0

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