• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.17-24
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• 2018

Grounding line of a glacier or ice shelf where ice bottom meets the ocean is sensitive to changes in the polar environment. Recent rapid changes of grounding lines have been observed especially in southwestern Antarctica due to global warming. In this study, ERS-1/2 and Sentinel-1A Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image were interferometrically acquired in 1996 and 2015, respectively, to monitor the movement of the grounding line in the western part of Ronne Ice Shelf near the Antarctic peninsula. Double-Differential Interferometric SAR (DDInSAR) technique was applied to remove gravitational flow signal to detect grounding line from the interferometric phase due to the vertical displacement of the tide. The result showed that ERS-1/2 grounding lines are almost consistent with those from Rignot et al. (2011) which used the similar dataset, confirming the credibility of the data processing. The comparison of ERS-1/2 and Sentinle-1A DDInSAR images showed a grounding line retreat of $1.0{\pm}0.1km$ from 1996 to 2015. It is also proved that the grounding lines based on the 2004 MODIS Mosaic of Antarctica (MOA) images and digital elevation model searching for ice plain near coastal area (Scambos et al., 2017), is not accurate enough especially where there is a ice plain with no tidal motion.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.163-168
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• 2008

Ship detection from satellite remote sensing is a crucial application for global monitoring for the purpose of protecting the marine environment and ensuring marine security. It permits to monitor sea traffic including fisheries, and to associate ships with oil discharge. An automatic ship detection approach for RADARSAT Fine Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image is described and assessed using in situ ship validation information collected during field experiments conducted on August 6, 2004. Ship detection algorithms developed here consist of five stages: calibration, land masking, prescreening, point positioning, and discrimination. The fine image was acquired of Ulsan Port, located in southeast Korea, and during the acquisition, wind speeds between 0 m/s and 0.4 m/s were reported. The detection approach is applied to anchoring ships in the anchorage area of the port and its results are compared with validation data based on Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) radar. Our analysis for anchoring ships, above 68 m in length (LOA), indicates a 100% ship detection rate for the RADARSAT single beam mode. It is shown that the ship detection performance of SAR for smaller ships like barge could be higher than the land-based radar. The proposed method is also applied to estimate the ship's dimensions of length and breadth from SAR radar cross section(RCS), but those values were comparatively higher than the actual sizes because of layover and shadow effects of SAR.

• Proceedings of KOSOMES biannual meeting
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• 2004.05b
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• pp.49-52
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• 2004

RADARSAT is one of many possible data sources that can play an important role in marine surveillance including ship detection because radar sensors have the two primary advantages: all-weather and day or night imaging. However, atmospheric effects on SAR imaging can not be bypassed and any remote sensing image has various geometric distortions. In this study, radiometric and geometric calibrations for RADARSAT/SAR data are tried using SGX products georeferenced as level 1. For radiometric calibration, information on the magnitude of the radar backscatter coefficient of the imaged terrain is extracted from the processed image data. Conversion method of the pixel DNs to beta nought and sigma nought is also investigated Finally, automatic geometric calibration based on the header file is compared to a marine chart.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• 1998.09a
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• pp.286-291
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• 1998

SAR has provided weather independent images on land and sea surface, which can be used for extracting various useful informations. Recently attempts to estimate wind field parameters from SAR images over the oceans have been made by various groups over the world. Although scatterometer loaded in ERS-1 and ERS-2 observes the global wind vector field at spatial resolution of 50 Km with accuracies of $\pm$2m/s in speed, the spatial resolution may not be good enough for applications in coastal regions. It is weil known the sea surface roughness is closely correlated to the wind field, but the wind retrieval algorithms from SAR images are yet in developing stage. Since the radar backscattering properties of the SAR images are principally the same as that of scatterometer, some previous studies conducted by other groups report the success in mesoscale coastal wind field retrievals using ERS SAR images. We have tested SWA (SAR Wind Algorithm) and CMOD4 model for estimation of wind speed using an ERS-1 SAR image acquired near Cheju Island, Korea, in October 11, 1994. The precise estimation of sigma nought and the direction of wind are required for applying the CMOD4 model to estimate wind speed. The wind speed in the test sub-image is estimated to be about 10.5m/s, which relatively well agrees to the observed wind speed about 9.0m/s at Seoguipo station. The wind speed estimation through the SWA is slightly higher than that of CMOD4 model. The sea surface condition may be favorable to SWA on the specific date. Since the CMOD4 model requires either wind direction or wind speed to retrieve the wind field, we should estimate the wind speed first using other algorithm including SWA. So far, it is not conclusive if the SWA can be used to provide input wind speed data for CMOD4 model or not. Since it is only initial stage of implementing the wind field retrieval algorithms and no in-situ observed data is currently avaliable, we are not able to evaluate the accuracy of the results at the moment. Therefore verification studies should be followed in the future to extract reliable wind field information in the coastal region using ERS SAR images.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.535-544
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• 2020

In synthetic aperture radar (SAR) based ship detection application, false alarms frequently occur due to various noises caused by the radar imaging process. Among them, radio frequency interference (RFI) and azimuth smearing produce substantial false alarms; the latter also yields longer length estimation of ships than the true length. These two noises are prominent at cross-polarization and relatively weak at co-polarization. However, in general, the cross-polarization data are suitable for ship detection, because the radar backscatter from background sea surface is much less in comparison with the co-polarization backscatter, i.e., higher ship-sea image contrast. In order to improve the ship detection accuracy further, the RFI and azimuth smearing need to be mitigated. In the present letter, Sentinel-1 VV- and VH-polarization intensity data are used to show a novel technique of removing these noises. In this method, median image intensities of noises and background sea surface are calculated to yield arithmetic tendency. A band-math formula is then designed to replace the intensities of noise pixels in VH-polarization with adjusted VV-polarization intensity pixels that are less affected by the noises. To verify the proposed method, the adaptive threshold method (ATM) with a sliding window was used for ship detection, and the results showed that the 74.39% of RFI false alarms are removed and 92.27% false alarms of azimuth smearing are removed.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.285-293
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• 2024

This study explores the use of Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), processed through Google Earth Engine (GEE), to monitor changes in the areas of Antarctic ice shelves. Focusing on the Campbell Glacier Tongue (CGT) and Drygalski Ice Tongue (DIT),the research utilizes GEE's cloud computing capabilities to handle and analyze large datasets. The study employs Otsu's method for image binarization to distinguish ice shelves from the ocean and mitigates detection errors by averaging monthly images and extracting main regions. Results indicate that the CGT area decreased by approximately 26% from January 2016 to January 2024, primarily due to calving events,while DIT showed a slight increase overall,with notable reduction in recent years. Validation against Sentinel-2 optical images demonstrates high accuracy,underscoring the effectiveness of SAR and GEE for continuous, long-term monitoring of Antarctic ice shelves.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.208-218
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• 2012

Numerical simulation technique has been developed to calculate microwave backscattering from water surface. The simulation plays a role of a substitute for experiments. Validation of the simulation was shown by comparing with experimental results. Water area observations by microwave radar have been simulated to evaluate algorithms and systems. Furthermore, the simulation can be used to understand microwave scattering mechanism on the water surface. The simulation has applied to the various methods for water area observations, and the utilizations of the simulation are introduced in this paper. In the case of fixed radar, we show following examples, 1. Radar image with a pulse Doppler radar, 2. Effect of microwave irradiation width and 3. River observation (Water level observation). In addition, another application (4.Synthetic aperture radar image) is also described. The details of the applications are as follows. 1. Radar image with a pulse Doppler radar: A new system for the sea surface observation is suggested by the simulation. A pulse Doppler radar is assumed to obtain radar images that display amplitude and frequency modulation of backscattered microwaves. The simulation results show that the radar images of the frequency modulation is useful to measure sea surface waves. 2. Effect of microwave irradiation width: It is reported (Rheem[2008]) that microwave irradiation width on the sea surface affects Doppler spectra measured by a CW (Continuous wave) Doppler radar. Therefore the relation between the microwave irradiation width and the Doppler spectra is evaluated numerically. We have shown the suitable condition for wave height estimation by a Doppler radar. 3. River observation (Water level observation): We have also evaluated algorithms to estimate water current and water level of river. The same algorithms to estimate sea surface current and sea surface level are applied to the river observation. The simulation is conducted to confirm the accuracy of the river observation by using a pulse Doppler radar. 4. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image: SAR images are helpful to observe the global sea surface. However, imaging mechanisms are complicated and validation of analytical algorithms by SAR images is quite difficult. In order to deal with the problems, SAR images in oceanic scenes are simulated.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• v.2
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• pp.820-823
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• 2006

Nonlinear internal waves (NLIW) were studied as a unusual phenomena in the ocean decades ago. As the quality, quantity and variety of satellite images improve over decades, it is founded that NLIW is a ubiquitous phenomenon. Over the continental shelf of northern South China Sea (SCS), both optical and microwave images show that there are trains of NLIW packets near Dongsha Atoll (20.7N, 116.8E). Each packet contains several NLIW fronts. These NLIW packets are nearly parallel to each other and they are refracted, reflected or diffracted by the change of ocean bottom topography. Based on Korteweg de Vries (KdV) theory and the assumption that the bright/dark lines in the satellite images are centers of convergence/divergence of NLIW fronts, one may (1) sort NLIW packets in the same satellite image into groups of the same source, but generated at different tidal cycles, (2) relate NLIW packets in consecutive satellite images of one day apart, (3) locating faint signals of NLIW fronts in a satellite image. The NLIWs travel more than 100 km/day near Dongsha Atoll, with higher speed in deeper water. The bias and standard deviation of predicted location of NLIW front from its true location is about 1% and 5.1%, respectively.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.34 no.6_3
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• pp.1383-1398
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• 2018

Sea surface wind is one of the most fundamental variables for understanding diverse marine phenomena. Although scatterometers have produced global wind field data since the early 1990's, the data has been used limitedly in oceanic applications due to it slow spatial resolution, especially at coastal regions. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is capable to produce high resolution wind field data. KOMPSAT-5 is the first Korean satellite equipped with X-band SAR instrument and is able to retrieve the sea surface wind. This study presents the validation results of sea surface wind derived from the KOMPSAT-5 backscattering coefficient data for the first time. We collected 18 KOMPSAT-5 ES mode data to produce a matchup database collocated with buoy stations. In order to calculate the accurate wind speed, we preprocessed the SAR data, including land masking, speckle noise reduction, and ship detection, and converted the in-situ wind to 10-m neutral wind as reference wind data using Liu-Katsaros-Businger (LKB) model. The sea surface winds based on XMOD2 show root-mean-square errors of about $2.41-2.74m\;s^{-1}$ depending on backscattering coefficient conversion equations. In-depth analyses on the wind speed errors derived from KOMPSAT-5 backscattering coefficient data reveal the existence of diverse potential error factors such as image quality related to range ambiguity, discrete and discontinuous distribution of incidence angle, change in marine atmospheric environment, impacts on atmospheric gravity waves, ocean wave spectrum, and internal wave.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.501-512
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• 2015

Landfast sea ice (LFI) in Terra Nova Bay, East Antarctica where the Jangbogo Antarctic Research Station is located, has significant influences on marine ecosystem and the sailing of an icebreaker. Therefore, it is essential to analyze the spatio-temporal variation of the LFI in Terra Nova Bay. In this study, we chose interferometric pairs with the temporal baseline from 1 to 9 days out of a total of 62 COSMO-SkyMed synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images over Terra Nova Bay obtained from December 2010 to January 2012, and then constructed the coherence image of each pair. The LFI showed coherence values higher than 0.3 even in the interferometric SAR (InSAR) pairs of up to 9-days of temporal baseline. This was because the LFI was fixed at coastline and thus showed low temporal phase decorrelation. Based on the characteristics of the coherence on LFI, We defined the areas of LFI that show spatially homogeneous coherence values higher than 0.5. Pack ice (PI) and open water showed low coherence values due to large temporal phase decorreation caused by current and wind. Distinguishing PI from open water in the coherence images was difficult due to their similarly low coherence values. PI was identified in SAR amplitude images by investigating cracks on the ice. The extents of the LFI and PI were estimated from the coherence and SAR amplitude images and their temporal variations were analyzed. The extent of the LFI increased from March to July (maximum extent of $170.7km^2$) and decreased from October. The extent of the PI increased from February to May and decreased from May to July when the LFI increases dramatically. The extent of the LFI and air temperature showed an inverse correlation with a time lag of about 2 months, i.e., the extent of the LFI decreases after 2 months of the increase in the air temperature. Meanwhile the correlation between wind speed and the extent of the LFI was very low. This represents that the extent of LFI in Terra Nova Bay are influenced more by the air temperature than wind speed.