A method of retrieving turbulent heat fluxes from Radarsat2 image mode data

This paper presents a method of retrieving turbulent heat fluxes, including interfacial sensible heat and latent heat flux, from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. In this study, Radarsat2 image data which is taken in south of China, Hainan Island, is used for retrieving wind field by CMOD5 firstly. After retrieving wind field, a bulk aerodynamic method of calculating the friction velocity and turbulent heat fluxes from drag coefficient, sensible heat and latent heat appropriate, wind speed, air temperature, ocean surface temperature and relative humidity is presented. The inversion results are compared to NCEP turbulent heat fluxes data. In conclusion, it is shown that retrieving turbulent heat fluxes using CMOD family models and the bulk aerodynamic method is applicable. This study is just an attempt of getting turbulent heat fluxes from SAR image.