Impact of Antenna Pattern on Measurement of the Third Stokes Parameter From Space at L-Band

The third Stokes parameter will be observed from space for the first time at L-band by the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity and Aquarius/SAC-D satellites. The correlation between polarizations, which is the source of the third Stokes parameter, is of interest at L-band to measure Faraday rotation and also to indicate novel features of the surface. However, spurious signals (false indication of correlation) can occur in the third Stokes parameter. For example, this happens when the radiometer crosses boundaries associated with a large change in brightness temperature, such as land-water boundaries. In this paper, calculations with the Aquarius radiometer antennas will be used to show that these spurious signals are due to the cross-polarization coupling and large beamwidth associated with realistic L-band antennas in space.

[1]  Simon Yueh,et al.  Estimates of Faraday rotation with passive microwave polarimetry for microwave remote sensing of Earth surfaces , 2000, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[2]  Richard K. Moore,et al.  Microwave Remote Sensing , 1999 .

[3]  W. Linwood Jones,et al.  The WindSat spaceborne polarimetric microwave radiometer: sensor description and early orbit performance , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[4]  Yann Kerr,et al.  The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity Mission - An Overview , 2008, IGARSS 2008 - 2008 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium.

[5]  Simon Yueh,et al.  Polarimetric microwave wind radiometer model function and retrieval testing for WindSat , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[6]  J. Kong,et al.  Theory of microwave remote sensing , 1985 .

[7]  David M. Le Vine,et al.  Effects of the Antenna Aperture on Remote Sensing of Sea Surface Salinity at L-band. , 2007, 2006 IEEE MicroRad.

[8]  David M. Le Vine,et al.  Aquarius: An Instrument to Monitor Sea Surface Salinity From Space , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[9]  Adriano Camps,et al.  Polarimetric formulation of the visibility function equation including cross-polar antenna patterns , 2005, IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters.

[10]  Emmanuel P. Dinnat,et al.  The Influence of Antenna Pattern on Faraday Rotation in Remote Sensing at L-Band , 2007, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[11]  David M. Le Vine,et al.  Aquarius and Remote Sensing of Sea Surface Salinity from Space , 2010, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[12]  Bertrand Chapron,et al.  Modeling Sun Glitter at L-Band for Sea Surface Salinity Remote Sensing With SMOS , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[13]  Dieter Bilitza,et al.  International reference ionosphere , 1978 .

[14]  A. Ludwig.  The definition of cross polarization , 1973 .

[15]  Simon Yueh,et al.  The Aquarius/SAC-D mission: Designed to meet the salinity remote-sensing challenge , 2008 .

[16]  Thomas J. Jackson,et al.  Analysis of WindSat Data over Arctic Sea Ice , 2008, IGARSS 2008 - 2008 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium.

[17]  Leung Tsang,et al.  Third and fourth Stokes parameters in polarimetric passive microwave remote sensing of rough surfaces over layered media , 2008 .

[18]  Yann Kerr,et al.  Foreword to the Special Issue on the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) Mission , 2008, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[19]  David M. Le Vine,et al.  Impact of the Sun on remote sensing of sea surface salinity from space , 2005, Proceedings. 2005 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2005. IGARSS '05..

[20]  Simon Yueh,et al.  The Aquarius Ocean Salinity Mission High Stability L-band Radiometer , 2006, 2006 IEEE International Symposium on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[21]  David M. Le Vine,et al.  Impact of Sun Glint on Salinity Remote Sensing: An Example With the Aquarius Radiometer , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[22]  David M. Le Vine,et al.  Comment on Modified Stokes Parameters , 2013, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[23]  David M. Le Vine,et al.  The effect of the ionosphere on remote sensing of sea surface salinity from space: absorption and emission at L band , 2002, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[24]  Philippe Waldteufel,et al.  About off-axis radiometric polarimetric measurements , 2002, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..