GIScience & Remote Sensing

Marine Applications for Microwave Remote Sensing and Ocean Modelling of Extreme Sea States in a Changing Climate

Remote sensors operating at microwave frequency are widely used for the monitoring of sea surface dynamics. In the last few decades, increasing numbers of remotely sensed products from several sensors, i.e., scatterometer, radiometer, altimeter, SAR and SWIM, have been released for use by public investigators. Microwave remote sensing can be deployed alongside traditional ocean modelling tools and has become essential for advancing oceanographic research.

Microwave remote sensing has the potential for global sea surface dynamic monitoring, and has applications for the measurement of a number of variables such as ocean temperature, wave height, wind speeds, and salinity. Microwave remote sensing is a particularly promising technique for sea surface monitoring in extreme states, such as during tropical cyclones (TCs). In the context of climate change, the steady melting of sea ice has an impact on sea surface dynamics and this is of particular interest to the remote sensing community. The future of research in this area will involve the development of the various retrieval techniques by microwave remote sensing and the improvement of research into sea dynamics by integrating remote sensing and ocean modelling.

The focus of this Article Collection includes three aspects, namely: Retrieval techniques by microwave remote sensing; Usage of remotely sensed products for extreme sea states; and the combination of remote sensing and ocean modelling.

 This Collection welcomes the submission of original research manuscripts or reviews in, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Backscattering theory of microwave remote sensing at extreme sea state
• Algorithms for sea surface dynamics retrievals, i.e., wind, wave, current, rain etc.
• Extreme sea state hindcasting and prediction by numeric marine models
• Analysis of characteristics of sea surface dynamics by remotely sensed products
• Other relevant applications by microwave remote sensing, i.e., bathymetry, sea ice, oil etc.

Article Collection Guest Advisors

Professor Weizeng Shao received a PhD degree in physical oceanography from the Ocean University of China, Qingdao, in 2013. During his PhD program in 2010–2012, he was a visiting research scientist with the SAR oceanography group at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Munich, Germany. At present, he has also been a full professor at Shanghai Ocean University (SHOU), Shanghai, China, since 2021. He has authored or coauthored more than 80 peer-reviewed journal articles on marine applications by synthetic aperture radar, especially from Chinese Gaofen-3 (GF-3), HY-2, 1mC-SAR and CFOSAT. He has been an editor of Journal of Ocean University of China since 2024.

Professor Changsheng Chen is the Montgomery Charter Chair Professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. As a physical oceanographer, his research interests include modeling and observational exploration of ocean circulation, oceanic frontal processes, turbulent mixing, bottom boundary layer dynamics, chaotic mixing, western boundary currents, internal waves and tides, and biological-physical interactions. With nearly 200 publications to his name, Dr. Chen is widely recognized for his contributions to these fields. He also leads the development of the innovative unstructured grid, finite-volume community ocean model (FVCOM).

Professor Yu Zhang received his Ph.D. in Marine Science and Technology from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, USA, and is currently an Associate Professor at Shanghai Ocean University.  He is also a key member of the Finite Volume Community Ocean Model (FVCOM) development team. His research focuses on multi-scale model development, sea ice remote sensing, simulated and observational exploration of oceanic variation processes, air–sea–ice interactions, and climate change prediction. Dr. Zhang has published nearly 50 papers in these fields and has been recognized with both international and Chinese scientific research awards for his contributions to ocean and sea ice studies.

Dr Yashi Zhou received the Ph. D. degree in the Department of Space Microwave Remote Sensing System, Institute of Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. At present, he has also been a full senior engineer at the Institute of Remote Sensing Satellite, China Academy of Space Technology, Beijing.

His current work centers upon the study of high-resolution and wide-swath imaging, radar signal processing and applications. Since 2023, he has been awarded the Youth Talent Program by the China Association for Science and Technology.

Article Collection key words:

1. Oceanic dynamics
2. Microwave remote sensing
3. Ocean modelling
4. Tropical cyclone
5. Arctic Ocean

­­All manuscripts submitted to this Article Collection will undergo a full peer-review; the Guest Advisor for this Collection will not be handling the manuscripts

Please contact Alex Johnson at alex.johnson@tandf.co.uk with any queries and discount codes regarding this Article Collection.

Please be sure to select the appropriate Article Collection from the drop-down menu in the submission system.

The Guest Advisors of this Collection have declared no conflict of interests.