Wide-Swath Observations of Ocean Surface Waves: Upgrade to the SIO MASS Topographic Lidar
Abstract
Satellite remote sensing has enabled significant progress in the fields of ocean, earth, atmospheric and environmental sciences by providing global coverage with ever-increasing spatial resolution. However, the temporal coverage of low earth orbiting satellites is not optimal. Since 2010, the Air-Sea interaction Laboratory at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography has developed the Modular Aerial Sensing System (MASS; Melville et al. 2016), an instrument system specifically designed to study ocean processes with time scales of hours to days (i.e. submesoscale), coastal processes, and air-sea-land interactions in the coastal zone all of which are relevant for improved understanding of physical, biological and chemical processes. In this project, we propose to upgrade the current capability of the MASS lidar, to at least double the swath width of the older MASS lidar, while improving the spatial resolution. This would significantly improve observations of air-sea interaction and surface processes, in particular in the context of submesoscale research, where fast response surveys are often required, to avoid temporal aliasing, as it extends the ocean topographic coverage over one pass, without the need for multiple passes. Additionally, and as importantly, the new lidar would effectively enable flights at much higher altitude, significantly broadening the cross-track spatial coverage of all other MASS optical sensors. This abstract is publicly releasable.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Feb 06, 2023
- Source ID
- N000142312227
Entities
People
- Luc Lenain
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- University of California, San Diego