Two-dimensional structure functions to characterize convective rolls in the marine atmospheric boundary layer from Sentinel-1 SAR images

TL;DR

This paper introduces a multiscale structure function approach to analyze convective rolls in the marine atmospheric boundary layer using Sentinel-1 SAR images, revealing new insights into their shape, size, and statistical properties.

Contribution

It presents a novel multiscale analysis method using structure functions to characterize convective rolls, including their asymmetry and intermittency from radar images.

Findings

Second order structure function characterizes roll size and direction.

High order statistics reveal asymmetry and intermittency.

First demonstration of asymmetry and intermittency analysis from radar images.

Abstract

We study the shape of convective rolls in the Marine Atmospheric Boundary Layer from Synthetic Aperture Radar images of the ocean. We propose a multiscale analysis with structure functions which allow an easy generalization to analyse high-order statistics and so to finely describe the shape of the rolls. The two main results are : 1) second order structure function characterizes the size and direction of rolls just like correlation or power spectrum do, 2) high order statistics can be studied with skewness and Flatness which characterize the asymmetry and intermittency of rolls respectively. From the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that the asymmetry and intermittency of rolls is shown from radar images of the ocean surface.