Natural oil films in coastal waters of Norway

This image is from the southern coast of Norway. The wind speed at the time of image acquisition on 28 April 1993 was about 5 m/s from the north-east. The two long strips ( lines in the interpretation image )in the top left part of the image occur close to a region where the wind must be low, such that it has dropped below the SAR imaging capability (i.e., less than 2-3 m/s) and creates a large dark region. This may be caused by wind sheltering by land.

The slicks in this low wind speed area have aligned themselves parallel with what could be a bright current shear or a convergence zone (thin line in interpretation image). This gives reason to believe that the dark lines represent natural film.

NERSC, Bergen, Norway

Keywords: ESA European Space Agency - Agence spatiale europeenne, observation de la terre, earth observation, satellite remote sensing, teledetection, geophysique, altimetrie, radar, chimique atmospherique, geophysics, altimetry, radar, atmospheric chemistry