Internal Solitary Wave Amplitude and Velocity Retrieval from Synthetic Aperture Radar Images of the California Inner Shelf Region

Abstract

The main field campaign of the Inner Shelf Departmental Research Initiative was conducted in the section of coast near Point Sal, California in September-October 2017 to better understand the dynamic processes that occur along the inner shelf. Internal solitary waves (ISWs) are ubiquitous in the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite images and will be the focus of this paper. The scale invariant feature transform (SIFT) is used as a tool to track ISWs between unique pairs of COSMO-SkyMed SAR images acquired about 24 minutes apart. ISW velocities are estimated using the SIFT matched keypoints between image pairs. Combining this method with instantaneous velocity estimates from the two individual images, based on an ISW amplitude retrieval algorithm previously developed, we can extend our abilities to study ISWs from space and our understanding of ISW dynamics in the California inner shelf region.