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A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292). This special issue belongs to the section "Ocean Remote Sensing".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2019) | Viewed by 34749

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Len Pietrafesa

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Guest Editor

Department of Coastal and Marine Systems Science, Coastal Carolina University, Conway, SC 29526, USA
Interests: observations of and numerical modeling of atmospheric; oceanic, estuary; land and hydraulic inter-actively coupled systems; relationships between climate and weather coupled systems; wind-wave-current coupled interactions
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Dr. Francesco Bignami

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Guest Editor

Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, UOS Rome, 00133 Roma, Italy
Interests: theoretical aspects of physical oceanography; air-sea interaction; the impact of physical oceanographic factors on phytoplankton, zooplankton and pelagic fish dynamics and distribution

Dr. Emanuele Böhm

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Institute of Marine Sciences—National Research Council, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, FI, Italy
Interests: oceanography; earth observation; physical oceanography; satellite image analysis; ocean currents and circulation; satellite image processing; satellite; water quality; environment; climate change
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Prof. Dr. Biao Zhang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

School of Marine Sciences, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, 219 Ningliu Road, Nanjing 210044, China
Interests: satellite oceanography; tropical cyclone remote sensing; atmosphere-ocean interaction; radar constellation sea ice monitoring; marine information intelligent extraction
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Prof. Dr. Qing Xu

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Guest Editor

College of Marine Technology, Faculty of Information Science and Engineering, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China
Interests: satellite oceanography; AI oceanography; remote sensing of marine dynamic environment; tropical cyclone; marine pollution
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Satellite remote sensing presents a robust tool to address and unravel coupled weather, water and climate phenomena at multiple scales. The temporal and spatial scales of atmospheric, oceanic, and hydrologic environmental phenomena span the period range from isolated events, particularly extreme events, to that of sub-seasonal variability in the Earth’s interactively coupled atmospheric, oceanic, and hydrologic systems. There are significant associated implications for human and ecological systems and these have become an emerging topic around which issues of societal and economic value and sustainability can be examined and used for societal response and planning. In this issue, remote sensing tools comprehensively address these phenomena because of the incredible spatial synoptic coverage that they provide. Coupled with environmental observational data sets and mathematical modeling output, satellite remote sensing couples observed and/or modeled environmental processes to societal impacts. Moreover, satellite data used for numerical model validation, are now being assimilated into next-gen numerical modeling strategies, advancing event prognostications. Specific topics include coastal renewable energy assessment; storm induced coastal and inland flooding; flood hazard mapping; atmospheric coastal frontal system detection; African SAL detection; ocean heat content; multi-scale storm phenomena components; atmospheric rivers; and new uncharted uses of different types of remotely sensed imagery for pattern recognition.

Prof. Len Pietrafesa
Dr. Francesco Bignami
Dr. Emanuele Böhm

Prof. Biao Zhang

Prof. Qing Xu

Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

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Related Special Issue

Satellite Remote Sensing of Weather, Water and Climate Couplings and Phenomena (Second Edition) in Remote Sensing (2 articles)

Published Papers (8 papers)

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16 pages, 3831 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Can Data Assimilation of Surface PM2.5 and Satellite AOD Improve WRF-Chem Forecasting? A Case Study for Two Scenarios of Particulate Air Pollution Episodes in Poland

by Małgorzata Werner, Maciej Kryza and Jakub Guzikowski

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(20), 2364; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11202364 - 12 Oct 2019

Cited by 16 | Viewed by 4051

Abstract

Based on the Weather Research and Forecasting model with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) model and Gridpoint Statistical Interpolation (GSI) assimilation tool, a forecasting system was used for two selected episodes (winter and summer) over Eastern Europe. During the winter episode, very high particular matter (PM2.5, diameter less than 2.5 µm) concentrations, related to low air temperatures and increased emission from residential heating, were measured at many stations in Poland. During the summer episode, elevated aerosol optical depth (AOD), likely related to the transport of pollution from biomass fires, was observed in Southern Poland. Our aim is to verify if there is a relevant positive impact of surface and satellite data assimilation (DA) on modeled PM2.5 concentrations, and to assess whether there are significant differences in the DA’s impact on concentrations between the two seasons. The results show a significant difference in the impact of surface and satellite DA on the model results between the summer and winter episode, which to a large degree is related to the availability of the satellite data. For example, the application of satellite DA raises the factor of two statistic from 0.18 to 0.78 for the summer episode, whereas this statistic remains unchanged (0.71) for the winter. The study suggests that severe winter air pollution episodes in Poland and Eastern Europe in general, often related to the dense cover of low clouds, will benefit from the assimilation of surface observations rather than satellite data, which can be very sparse in such meteorological situations. In contrast, the assimilation of satellite data can have a greater positive impact on the model results during summer than the assimilation of surface data for the same period. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Satellite Remote Sensing of Weather, Water and Climate Couplings and Phenomena)

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20 pages, 9450 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Multiple-Scale Variations of Sea Ice and Ocean Circulation in the Bering Sea Using Remote Sensing Observations and Numerical Modeling

by Changming Dong, Xiaoqian Gao, Yiming Zhang, Jingsong Yang, Hongchun Zhang and Yi Chao

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(12), 1484; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11121484 - 22 Jun 2019

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 4207

Abstract

The Bering Sea is located between the Aleutian Low and Siberian High, with strong seasonal variations in the oceanic circulation and the sea ice coverage. Within such a large-scale system, the physical processes in the Bering Sea carry interannual variability. The special topography in the Bering Sea traps a strong jet along the Bering Slope, whose instability enriches the eddy activity in the region. A Regional Oceanic Modeling System (ROMS), coupled with a sea ice module, is employed to study multiple-scale variability in the sea ice and oceanic circulation in the Bering Sea for interannual, seasonal, and intra-seasonal eddy variations. The model domain covers the whole Bering Sea and a part of the Chukchi Sea and south of Aleutian Islands, with an averaged spatial resolution of 5 km. The external forcings are momentum, heat, and freshwater flux at the surface and adaptive nudging to reanalysis fields at the boundaries. The oceanic model starts in an equilibrium state from a multiple year cyclical climatology run, and then it is integrated from years 1990 through 2004. The 15 year simulation is analyzed and assessed against the observational data. The model accurately reproduces the seasonal and interannual variations in the sea ice coverage compared with the satellite-observed sea ice data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). Sea surface temperature and eddy kinetic energy patterns from the ROMS agree with satellite remote sensing data. The transportation through the Bering Strait is also comparable with the estimate of mooring data. The mechanism for seasonal and interannual variation in the Bering Sea is connected to the Siberia-Aleutian index. Eddy variation along the Bering Slope is discussed. The model also simulates polynya generation and evolution around the St. Lawrence Island. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Satellite Remote Sensing of Weather, Water and Climate Couplings and Phenomena)

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17 pages, 6718 KiB

Open AccessArticle

SST Anomalies in the Mozambique Channel Using Remote Sensing and Numerical Modeling Data

by Guoqing Han, Changming Dong, Junde Li, Jingsong Yang, Qingyue Wang, Yu Liu and Joel Sommeria

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(9), 1112; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11091112 - 9 May 2019

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 5014

Abstract

Based on both satellite remote sensing sea surface temperature (SST) data and numerical model results, SST warming differences in the Mozambique Channel (MC) west of the Madagascar Island (MI) were found with respect to the SST east of the MI along the same latitude. The mean SST west of the MI is up to about 3.0 °C warmer than that east of the MI. The SST differences exist all year round and the maximum value appears in October. The area of the highest SST is located in the northern part of the MC. Potential factors causing the SST anomalies could be sea surface wind, heat flux and oceanic flow advection. The presence of the MI results in weakening wind in the MC and in turn causes weakening of the mixing in the upper oceans, thus the surface mixed layer depth becomes shallower. There is more precipitation on the east of the MI than that inside the MC because of the orographic effects. Different precipitation patterns and types of clouds result in different solar radiant heat fluxes across both sides of the MI. Warm water advected from the equatorial area also contribute to the SST warm anomalies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Satellite Remote Sensing of Weather, Water and Climate Couplings and Phenomena)

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19 pages, 3682 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Estimation of Surface Air Specific Humidity and Air–Sea Latent Heat Flux Using FY-3C Microwave Observations

by Qidong Gao, Sheng Wang and Xiaofeng Yang

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(4), 466; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11040466 - 24 Feb 2019

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 5213

Abstract

Latent heat flux (LHF) plays an important role in the global hydrological cycle and is therefore necessary to understand global climate variability. It has been reported that the near-surface specific humidity is a major source of error for satellite-derived LHF. Here, a new [...] Read more.

T_{B}

) obtained from the Fengyun-3 (FY-3C) microwave radiometer and sea surface air specific humidity (

Q_{a}

) is proposed. It is based on the relationship between

T_{B}

Q_{a},

sea surface temperature (SST), and water vapor scale height. Compared with in situ data, the new satellite-derived

Q_{a}

and LHF both exhibit better statistical results than previous estimates. For

Q_{a}

, the bias, root mean square difference (RMSD), and the correlation coefficient (R²) between satellite and buoy in the mid-latitude region are 0.08 g/kg, 1.76 g/kg, and 0.92, respectively. For LHF, the bias, RMSD, and R² are 2.40 W/m², 34.24 W/m², and 0.87, respectively. The satellite-derived

Q_{a}

are also compared with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) humidity datasets, with a bias, RMSD, and R² of 0.02 g/kg, 1.02 g/kg, and 0.98, respectively. The proposed method can also be extended in the future to observations from other space-borne microwave radiometers. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Satellite Remote Sensing of Weather, Water and Climate Couplings and Phenomena)

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18 pages, 20877 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Variability of the Great Whirl and Its Impacts on Atmospheric Processes

by Sen Wang, Weijun Zhu, Jing Ma, Jinlin Ji, Jingsong Yang and Changming Dong

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(3), 322; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11030322 - 6 Feb 2019

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 4109

Abstract

Using satellite remote sensing data and re-analysis products for the period of 1993–2015, the variation of a large anticyclonic eddy, the so-called Great Whirl (GW), located in the Northwest Indian Ocean off the coast of Somali, and its impacts on atmosphere were investigated. The GW is generated in early summer and decays in late fall every year. The center of the GW is located at 7.73°N, 53.20°E. The mean lifetime, sea level anomaly (SLA) difference, sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA), radius, normalized vorticity, eddy kinetic energy (EKE), and deformation rate are 169 days, 0.07 m, 0.83 °C, 116.86 km, −0.53, 0.08

m^{2} \cdot s^{- 2}

, and 0.58, respectively. All these variables exhibit interannual variations. Composite analyses show that the maximum values of sea surface temperature (SST), wind, and water vapor anomalies occur in the northwest of the GW center. The fitting coefficient between the SST and wind speed anomaly is 1.1, indicating that, corresponding to 1 °C increases of the SST, the wind speed increases by about 1.1

m \cdot s^{- 1}

, and the fitting coefficient between the SST and water vapor anomaly is 0.45, indicating that water vapor increases by about 0.45 mm in response to 1 °C increases in the SST. In the vertical direction, the maximum and minimum values of vertical velocity anomalies and vertical transport of transient zonal momentum occur over the GW at about 900 hPa, and wind speed anomalies occur at about 950 hPa. Both the positive transport anomalies of transient zonal momentum and the positive vertical velocity anomalies on the west side of the GW can accelerate the wind speed in the lower level. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Satellite Remote Sensing of Weather, Water and Climate Couplings and Phenomena)

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14 pages, 5247 KiB

Open AccessLetter

Remotely-Observed Early Spring Warming in the Southwestern Yellow Sea Due to Weakened Winter Monsoon

by Xiangbai Wu, Qing Xu, Gen Li, Yuei-An Liou, Bin Wang, Huan Mei and Kai Tong

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(21), 2478; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11212478 - 24 Oct 2019

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3237

Abstract

The seasonal warming over the southwestern Yellow Sea (YS) in the spring is of vital importance to the local ecologic environment, especially to the massive green algae blooms of the YS in late spring and early summer. Based on daily optimum interpolation sea surface temperature (SST) data consisting of satellite derived SST from Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) and in situ measurements, this study analyzed the spring SST variation over the southwestern YS (SWYS) from 1982 to 2018. The results show that the recent warming trend of spring SST over the SWYS is four-to-six times that of the global average, and as a result, sea water over the Subei Shoal (SBS) shifts about 10–13 days earlier to reach 10 °C in early April. This implies that, accordingly, the micro-propagules of green algae over the SBS may have the chance to germinate earlier. SST variability in early April significantly correlates with northerly wind and exhibits a general warming over the SWYS with an intensified warming anchored along the axis of the submarine canyon off the Yangtze estuary. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) red–green–blue composite images captured the intrusion of the Taiwan Warm Current (TWC) into the SWYS through the submarine canyon during northerly wind relaxation in early April. Ocean remote sensing provides important clues for understanding the regional SST variability in the SWYS. Following this clue, this study finds that the weakening of winter monsoon in the spring leads to northward migration of the TWC and results in enhanced spring warming over the SWYS. The attendant advanced warming in spring, resulting in a favorable temperature condition for early development of green alga, may have contributed to the green tide blooms in the Yellow Sea in the recent decade. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Satellite Remote Sensing of Weather, Water and Climate Couplings and Phenomena)

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10 pages, 6192 KiB

Open AccessLetter

Sea State Bias Variability in Satellite Altimetry Data

by Yongcun Cheng, Qing Xu, Le Gao, Xiaofeng Li, Bin Zou and Ting Liu

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(10), 1176; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11101176 - 17 May 2019

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3567

Abstract

Sea State Bias (SSB) contributes to global mean sea level variability and it needs cm-level range adjustment due to the instrumental drift over time. To investigate its variations and correct the global and regional sea level trend precisely, we calculate the temporal and spatial variability of the SSB correction in TOPEX, Jason-1, Jason-2 and Jason-3 missions, separately, as well as in the combined missions over the period 1993–2017. The long-term trend in global mean operational 2D non-parametric SSB correction is about −0.03 ± 0.03 mm/yr, which accounts for 1% of current global mean sea level change rate during 1993–2016. This correction contributes to sea level change rates of −1.27 ± 0.21 mm/yr and −0.26 ± 0.13 mm/yr in TOPEX-A and Jason-2 missions, respectively. The global mean SSB varies up to 7–10 mm during the very strong ENSO events in 1997–1998 and 2015–2016. Furthermore, the TOPEX SSB trend, which is consistent with recently reported sea level trend drift during 1993–1998, may leak into the determined global sea level trend in the period. Moreover, the Jason-1/2 zonal SSB variability is highly correlated with the significant wave height (SWH). On zonal average, SSB correction causes about 1% uncertainty in mean sea level trend. At high SWH regions, the uncertainties grow to 2–4% near the 50°N and 60°S bands. This should be considered in the study of regional sea level variability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Satellite Remote Sensing of Weather, Water and Climate Couplings and Phenomena)

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15 pages, 5931 KiB

Open AccessLetter

Impact of Cyclonic Ocean Eddies on Upper Ocean Thermodynamic Response to Typhoon Soudelor

by Jue Ning, Qing Xu, Han Zhang, Tao Wang and Kaiguo Fan

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(8), 938; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11080938 - 18 Apr 2019

Cited by 29 | Viewed by 4419

Abstract

By using multiplatform satellite datasets, Argo observations and numerical model data, the upper ocean thermodynamic responses to Super Typhoon Soudelor are investigated with a focus on the impact of an ocean cyclonic eddy (CE). In addition to the significant surface cooling inside the CE region, an abnormally large rising in subsurface temperature is observed. The maximum warming and heat content change (HCC) reach up to 4.37 °C and 1.73 GJ/m², respectively. Moreover, the HCC is an order of magnitude larger than that calculated from statistical analysis of Argo profile data in the previous study which only considered the effects caused by typhoons. Meanwhile, the subsurface warming outside the CE is merely 1.74 °C with HCC of 0.39 GJ/m². Previous studies suggested that typhoon-induced vertical mixing is the primary factor causing subsurface warming but these studies ignored an important mechanism related to the horizontal advection caused by the rotation and movement of mesoscale eddies. This study documents that the eddy-induced horizontal advection has a great impact on the upper ocean responses to typhoons. Therefore, the influence of eddies should be considered when studying the responses of upper ocean to typhoons with pre-existing mesoscale eddies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Satellite Remote Sensing of Weather, Water and Climate Couplings and Phenomena)

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