Wind direction over the ocean determined by an airborne, imaging, polarimetric radiometer system

The speed and direction of winds over the ocean can be determined by polarimetric radiometers. This has been established by theoretical work and demonstrated experimentally using airborne radiometers carrying out circle flights and thus measuring the full 360 azimuthal response from the sea surface. An airborne experiment, with the aim of measuring wind direction over the ocean using an imaging polarimetric radiometer, is described. A polarimetric radiometer system of the correlation type, measuring all four Stokes brightness parameters, is used. Imaging is achieved using a 1-m aperture conically scanning antenna. The polarimetric azimuthal signature of the ocean is known from modeling and circle flight experiments. Combining the signature with the measured brightness data from just a single flight track enables the wind direction to be determined on a pixel-by-pixel basis in the radiometer imagery.