Marine atmospheric boundary layer depth retrieval by SAR in China Sea

The marine atmospheric boundary layer is the part of the atmospheric that has direct contact and, hence, is directly influenced by the ocean. Thus, at the marine atmospheric boundary layer is where the ocean and atmospheric exchange primarily via convective turbulent transport. Associated with these convective atmospheric phenomena is a varying sea surface wind field which modulated the short-scale sea surface roughness, and thus the kilometer-scale convective atmospheric phenomena, such as the three dimensional atmospheric convective cells and two dimensional convective rolls over the ocean, affect the sea surface roughness and thus become detectable by Synthetic Aperture Radar ( SAR). In this study, the boundary layer similarity theories and the convective theories are applied to the SAR images with the convective characteristic of the marine atmospheric boundary layer, and the probability of getting the turbulent-scale horizontal variability in air-sea stress by SAR image is discussed. The depths of the marine atmospheric boundary layer could be retrieved by SAR image with three dimensional convective cells and two dimensional convective rolls, and both were compared to the depth retrieved by Lidar and potential temperature result from weather station. The results show that the method of marine atmospheric boundary layer depth retrieved by SAR image is feasible, and SAR image combining with Lidar and weather information will have bright future in the area of detecting the marine atmospheric boundary layer.