• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.135-147
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• 2023

Satellite-observed significant wave heights (SWHs), which are widely used to understand the response of the ocean to climate change, require long-term and continuous validation. This study examines the accuracy and error characteristics of SWH observed by nine satellite altimeters in the North Pacific and North Atlantic Ocean for 25 years (1992-2016). A total of 137,929 matchups were generated to compare altimeter-observed SWH and in-situ measurements. The altimeter SWH showed a bias of 0.03 m and a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.27 m, indicating relatively high accuracy in the North Pacific and North Atlantic Ocean. However, the spatial distribution of altimeter SWH errors showed notable differences. To better understand the error characteristics of altimeter-observed SWH, errors were analyzed with respect to in-situ SWH, time, latitude, and distance from the coast. Overestimation of SWH was observed in most satellite altimeters when in-situ SWH was low, while underestimation was observed when in-situ SWH was high. The errors of altimeter-observed SWH varied seasonally, with an increase during winter and a decrease during summer, and the variability of errors increased at higher latitudes. The RMSEs showed high accuracy of less than 0.3 m in the open ocean more than 100 km from the coast, while errors significantly increased to more than 0.5 m in coastal regions less than 15 km. These findings underscore the need for caution when analyzing the spatio-temporal variability of SWH in the global and regional oceans using satellite altimeter data.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.95-100
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• 2012

Big swell is often generated offshore and damages the coasts after travelling long distance. In order to prevent coastal damages, wave measurements should be performed offshore as well as coastal waters around Korea. However, in-situ wave measurements are difficult because of high expense of instruments and high risk of operation. Satellite wave measurements using altimeter make it possible to get wave information from the sea difficult to execute field measurements such as the center of the East Sea or exclusive territorial waters. In order to use wave information from the satellite altimeter, it is important to verify altimeter wave data with in-situ data. This paper examines significant wave height data observed by ENVISAT altimeter by comparing wave data observed at Ieodo station.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• v.1
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• pp.135-137
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• 2006

HY-2, the China's satellite for oceanic dynamic environment measurement, is planed to be launched around 2010. The main payloads of HY-2 include a dual-frequency radar altimeter equipped with a three-band nadir-looking radiometer for atmospheric delay correction, a Ku-band radar scatterometer, and a five-band scanning radiometer. This presentation outlines the specifications, parameters, and design of the HY-2 radar altimeter and scatterometer.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Surveying, Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.61-68
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• 1995

This paper is to provide a reference surface geoid for geodetic applications of satellite altimeter data. The paticular satellite alone or the combination with other altimeter data could be used for the recovery of geoid un-dulations and gravity anomalies in the ocean areas. This paper also describes the geoidal undulation in the ocean area of Korean Peninusla using Geosat, ERS-1 and Topex/Poseidon data. The results show that the quasi-stationary sea surface topography (557) is estimated to be less than 10 cm RMS value in the ocean area of Korean Peninsula. This can be considered as an altimeter geoid.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.631-644
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• 2013

Significant Wave Height (SWH) data measured by satellite altimeters (Topex/Poseidon, Jason-1, Envisat, and Jason-2) were validated in the seas around Korea by comparison with wave height measurements from marine meteorological buoy stations of Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA). A total of 1,070 collocation matchups between Ku-band satellite altimeter data and buoy data were obtained for the periods of the four satellites from 1992 to the present. In the case of C-band and S-band observations, 1,086 matchups were obtained and used to assess the accuracy of satellite SWH. Root-Mean-Square (RMS) errors of satellite SWH measured with Ku-band were evaluated to roughly 0.2_2.1 m. Comparisons of the RMS errors and bias errors between different frequency bands revealed that SWH observed with Ku-band was much more accurate than other frequencies, such as C-band or S-band. The differences between satellite SWH and buoy wave height, satellite minus buoy, revealed some dependence on the magnitude of the wave height. Satellite SWH tended to be overestimated at a range of low wave height of less than 1 m, and underestimated for high wave height of greater than 2 m. Such regional characteristics imply that satellite SWH should be carefully used when employed for diverse purposes such as validating wave model results or data assimilation procedures. Thus, this study confirmed that satellite SWH products should be continuously validated for regional applications.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.524-535
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• 2021

Rapid climate change and oceanic warming have increased the variability of oceanic wave heights over the past several decades. In addition, the extreme wave heights, such as the upper 1% (or 5%) wave heights, have increased more than the heights of the normal waves. This is true for waves both in global oceans as well as in local seas. Satellite altimeters have consistently observed significant wave heights (SWHs) since 1991, and sufficient SWH data have been accumulated to investigate 100-year return period SWH values based on statistical approaches. Satellite altimeter data were used to estimate the extreme SWHs at the Ieodo Ocean Research Station (IORS) for the period from 2005 to 2016. Two representative extreme value analysis (EVA) methods, the Initial Distribution Method (IDM) and Peak over Threshold (PoT) analysis, were applied for SWH measurements from satellite altimeter data and compared with the in situ measurements observed at the IORS. The 100-year return period SWH values estimated by IDM and PoT analysis using IORS measurements were 8.17 and 14.11 m, respectively, and those using satellite altimeter data were 9.21 and 16.49 m, respectively. When compared with the maximum value, the IDM method tended to underestimate the extreme SWH. This result suggests that the extreme SWHs could be reasonably estimated by the PoT method better than by the IDM method. The superiority of the PoT method was supported by the results of the in situ measurements at the IORS, which is affected by typhoons with extreme SWH events. It was also confirmed that the stability of the extreme SWH estimated using the PoT method may decline with a decrease in the quantity of the altimeter data used. Furthermore, this study discusses potential limitations in estimating extreme SWHs using satellite altimeter data, and emphasizes the importance of SWH measurements from the IORS as reference data in the East China Sea to verify satellite altimeter data.

• 한국해양학회지
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.383-391
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• 1994

Sea surface height geoidal undulation, and gravity anomaly derived from satellite altimeter measurements are described. Assuming mean sea surface height (MSSH) as geoidal undulation, MSSH was converted to gravity anomaly. the result shows that the gravity anomaly derived from satellite altimeter data can be mapped to an accuracy of the surface ship gravity measurements. The data used for the conversion is the two-year mean sea surface height obtained from GEOSAT Exact Repeat Mission. The conversion was carried out using fast Fourier transform with plane approximation. In this process, the so called remove-restore method was employed.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.282-297
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• 2019

Detection of mesoscale oceanic eddies using satellite data can utilize various ocean parameters such as sea surface temperature (SST), chlorophyll-a pigment concentration in phytoplankton, and sea level altimetry measurements. Observation methods vary for each satellite dataset, as it is obtained using different temporal and spatial resolution, and optimized data processing. Different detection results can be derived for the same oceanic eddies; therefore, fundamental research on eddy detection using satellite data is required. In this study, we used ocean color satellite data, sea level altimetry data, and infrared SST data to detect mesoscale eddies in the East Sea and compared results from different detection methods. The sea surface current field derived from the consecutive ocean color chlorophyll-a concentration images using the maximum cross correlation coefficient and the geostrophic current field obtained from the sea level altimetry data were used to detect the mesoscale eddies in the East Sea. In order to compare the eddy detection from satellite data, the results were divided into three cases as follows: 1) the eddy was detected in both the ocean color and altimeter images simultaneously; 2) the eddy was detected from ocean color and SST images, but no eddy was detected in the altimeter data; 3) the eddy was not detected in ocean color image, while the altimeter data detected the eddy. Through these three cases, we described the difficulties with satellite altimetry data and the limitations of ocean color and infrared SST data for eddy detection. It was also emphasized that study on eddy detection and related research required an in-depth understanding of the mesoscale oceanic phenomenon and the principles of satellite observation.

• Proceedings of the KOR-KST Conference
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• 1998.02a
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• pp.77-92
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• 1998

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• v.2
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• pp.534-534
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• 2006