Sea State from Sentinel-1 SAR Wave Mode Imagery for Maritime Situation Awareness

An empirical algorithm was developed for estimation of wide spectrum of integrated sea state parameters from Sentinel-1 Wave Mode imagery including total significant wave height Hs, swell wave height, height of windsea, first moment wave period Tm1, second moment wave period Tm2, and mean wave period Tm. The algorithm was tuned and cross-validated using two different global wave models and buoy measurements. The accuracy of the estimated Hs reached against the models RMSEswh=0.35 m and against NDBC buoys RMSEbuoy=0.44 m. The period’s accuracies evaluated by the models are RMSETm1=0.52 s, RMSETm2=0.48 s, RMSETmean=0.63 s and the accuracy of partial integrated parameters are RMSEswh-swell=0.42 m, RMSEswh-windsea=0.42 m, RMSETwindsea=0.63 s.