Remote sensing of the sea-state using the 0.8-1.1 microns channel.
Résumé
It is demonstrated that the variations of reflectance observed in the 0.8-1.1 micron spectral band are mainly due to a change in the reflection coefficient related to sea state. The Cox and Munk (1954) model is used to compute the sea surface reflection coefficient for various geometrical conditions. The reflectance of glitter for wind speeds of 5 and 14 m/s and 14 m/s when foam is taken into account is shown. The model is found to fit previous observations, and is applied to the Landsat and SPOT satellites. It is concluded that the observed signal induced by sea state variations is minimum during late autumn and winter and is maximum during June.