An investigation on the damping ratio of marine oil slicks in synthetic aperture radar imagery

The damping ratio has recently been used to indicate the relative internal oil thickness within slicks observed in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery. However, there exists no well-defined and evaluated methodology for calculating ratio. In this study, we review prior work regarding outline its theoretical practical aspects. We show that most often yields values differ, some cases significantly, same scene. Three alternative methods are tested on multi-frequency data sets of verified acquired from DLR's F-SAR instrument, NASA's Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) Sentinel-1. All yielded similar results variations slick. proposed derivation were found be sensitive proportion covered pixels versus open water azimuth direction, as well scene size question. fully automatable histogram method provides consistent even under challenging conditions. Comparisons between optical imagery derived using good agreement relatively thicker slick areas two different types sensors.