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Chan, H. L.

Publications and source records attributed to Chan, H. L..

6 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1977

A theory of sea scatter at large incident angles

Radar sea scatter at large incident angles (30 deg or greater) is investigated using a model which takes into account theoretically-calculated small- and large-scale wave perturbations as well as measured sea surface slope densities and sea spectra obtained from empirical observations. Effects of incident angle, polarization, frequency, wind speed and anisotropic characteristics of the sea surface may be studied by application of the model. In particular, it is found that the increase in backscattering coefficients with wind velocity is due primarily to the growth of the sea spectrum and secondarily to the interaction between small- and large-scale perturbations. Furthermore, differences in upwind and downwind observations may be attributed to anisotropic properties of the sea spectrum. Theoretical findings derived from the model are compared with experimental data, and good agreement is found.

Chan, H. L.↗
NASA NTRS1976

The measurement of the winds near the ocean surface with a radiometer-scatterometer on Skylab

The author has identified the following significant results. There were a total of twenty-six passes in the ZLV mode that yielded useful data. Six were in the in-track noncontiguous mode; all others were in the cross-track noncontiguous mode. The wind speed and direction, as effectively determined in a neutral atmosphere at 19.5 m above the sea surface, were found for each cell scanned by S193. It is shown how the passive microwave measurements were used both to compute the attenuation of the radar beam and to determine those cells where the backscatter measurement was suspect. Given the direction of the wind from some independent source, with the typical accuracy of measurement by available meteorological methods, a backscatter measurement at a nadir angle of 50, 43, or 32 deg can be used to compute the speed of the wind averaged over the illuminated area.

Pierson, W. J.↗
NASA NTRS1975

Skylab S-193 Radscat microwave measurements of sea surface winds

The S-193 Radscat made extensive measurements of many sea conditions. Measurements were taken in a tropical hurricane (Ava), a tropical storm (Christine), and in portions of extratropical cyclones. Approximately 200 scans of ocean data at 105 kilometer spacings were taken during the first two Skylab missions and another 200 during the final mission when the characteristics of the measurements changed due to damage of the antenna. Backscatter with four transmit/receive polarization combinations and emissions with horizontal and vertical receive polarizations were measured. Other surface parameters investigated for correlation with the measurements included sea temperature, air/sea temperature difference, and gravity-wave spectrum. Methods were developed to correct the microwave measurements for atmospheric effects. The radiometric data were corrected accurately for clear sky and light cloud conditions only. The radiometer measurements were used to recover the surface scattering characteristics for all atmospheric conditions excluding rain. The radiometer measurements also detected the presence of rain which signaled when the scattering measurement should not be used for surface wind estimation. Regression analysis was used to determine empirically the relation between surface parameters and the microwave measurements, after correction for atmospheric effects. Results indicate a relationship approaching square-law at 50 deg between differential scattering coefficient and wind speed with horizontally polarized scattering data showing slightly more sensitivity to wind speed than vertically polarized data.

Moore, R. K.↗
NASA NTRS1973

Backscattering from a two-scale rough surface with application to radar sea return

A two-scale composite surface scattering theory was developed without using the noncoherent assumption. The surface is assumed electrically homogeneous and finitely conducting; the surface roughness may be nonuniform geometrically. The special forms of the terms for excluding the non-coherent assumption and the meanings of these terms are discussed. To gain insight into the mechanisms of backscattering, the results are compared with those obtained by previous theories. The comparison with NRL data shows satisfactory agreement for both horizontal and vertical polarization, especially for incident angles larger than 30 deg. For smaller incident angles, NASA/JSC data have been chosen for comparison and close agreement is again observed.

Chan, H. L.↗
NASA NTRS1973

Toward RADSCAT measurements over the sea and their interpretation

Investigations into several areas which are essential to the execution and interpretation of suborbital observations by composite radiometer - scatterometer sensor (RADSCAT) are reported. Experiments and theory were developed to demonstrate the remote anemometric capability of the sensor over the sea through various weather conditions. It is shown that weather situations found in extra tropical cyclones are useful for demonstrating the all weather capability of the composite sensor. The large scale fluctuations of the wind over the sea dictate the observational coverage required to correlate measurements with the mean surface wind speed. Various theoretical investigations were performed to establish a premise for the joint interpretation of the experiment data. The effects of clouds and rains on downward radiometric observations over the sea were computed. A method of predicting atmospheric attenuation from joint observations is developed. In other theoretical efforts, the emission and scattering characteristics of the sea were derived. Composite surface theories with coherent and noncoherent assumptions were employed.

Claassen, J. P.↗