Sun glitter imaging of submarine sand waves on the Taiwan Banks: Determination of the relaxation rate of short waves

Above sand waves on the seafloor, surface short waves, which are responsible for the radiance distribution in remote sensing imagery, are modulated gradually by the submarine topography. The relaxation rate μ r characterizes the rate at which the short waves reach their saturation range after being disturbed. It is a key parameter in the weak hydrodynamic interaction theory and is also a most important parameter in the imaging mechanism used for mapping submarine bottom topography. In this study, a robust expression containing intensity and phase (advection effect) modulations of the perturbed action spectrum of short waves was deduced, by using the first‐order weak hydrodynamic interaction theory. On the basis of the phase modulation, a method was developed to determine the relaxation rate in the Sun glitter imaging mechanism. The relaxation rates were estimated using in situ data measured on a cruise over the sand waves of the Taiwan Banks, a sea area between the East China Sea and the South China Sea, on 28–29 August 2006. Results showed that, under a wind speed of 5.0 m s −1 , the relaxation rate of short waves was about 0.055 s −1 in response to current variations and about 0.025 s −1 equivalently in response to sea bottom topographic variations. The former value could be applied to interpret the amplitude of submarine topography by using satellite imagery, while the latter one (equivalent relaxation rate μ ′ r ) could help to more accurately calibrate the spatial position of the retrieved sea bottom topography.