Evolution of oil slick patterns as observed by SAR off the coast of Wales - An application of the MSSM feature tracking method.

  Pablo Clemente-Colón, Xiao-Hai Yan, and W. Pichel

  Abstract:

  Data from three different Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) spaceborne
  sensors were obtained over the coast of Wales, UK.  These observations
  indicated the persistence of slick features associated with the grounding
  on February 15, 1996 of the Sea Empress tanker and the resulting massive
  oil spill that followed.   RADARSAT, ERS-1, and ERS-2 SAR images showed
  the evolution of these features from February 22 to February 26, 1996.
  The feature tracking Maximum Similarity Shape Matching method (MSSM)
  developed at the University of Delaware College of Marine Studies (CMS)
  was applied to the SAR images. Observations of the slick pattern
  evolution in the SAR imagery were compared to available reports of ground
  conditions.  Drift speeds as high as 11 cm/s were calculated using MSSM.
  Deformation of the slick features was also evident in the SAR data
  throughout the five-day period.

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