• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.36 no.5_1
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• pp.749-762
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• 2020

Precipitation is closely related to various hydrometeorological phenomena, such as runoff and evapotranspiration. In Korean Peninsula, observing rainfall intensity using weather radar and rain gauge network is dominating due to their accurate, intuitive and precise detecting power. However,since these methods are not suitable at ungauged regions, rainfall detection using satellite is required. Satellite-based rainfall data has coarse spatial resolution (10 km, 25 km), and has a limited range of usage due to its reliability of data. The aim of this study is to obtain finer scale precipitation. Especially, to make the applicability of satellite higher at ungauged regions, 10 km satellite-based rainfall data was downscaled to 1 km data using MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) based cloud property. Downscaled precipitation was verified in urban region, which has complex topographical and environmental characteristics. Correlation coefficient was similar in summer (+0), decreased in spring (-0.08) and autumn (-0.01), and increased in winter (+0.04) season compared to Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) based precipitation. Downscaling without calibration using in situ data could be useful in areas where rain gauge system is not sufficient or ground observations are rarely available.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.543-553
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• 2011

Sea ice concentration calculated from the AMSR-E onboard Aqua satellite by using NASA Team2 sea ice algorithm has proven to be very accurate over sea ice in Antarctic Ocean. When glacial ice such as icebergs and ice shelves are dominant in an AMSR-E footprint, the accuracy of the ice concentration calculated from NASA Team2 algorithm is not well maintained due to the different microwave characteristics of the glacial ice from sea ice. We extracted the concentrations of sea ice and glacial ice from two ENVISAT ASAR images of George V coast in southern Antarctica, and compared them with NASA Team2 sea ice concentration. The result showed that the NASA Team2 algorithm underestimates the concentration of glacial ice. To interpret the large deviation of estimation over glacial ice, we analyzed the characteristics of microwave radiation of the glacial ice in PR(polarization ratio), GR(spectral gradient ratio), $PR_R$(rotated PR), and ${\Delta}GR$ domain. We found that glacial ice occupies a unique region in the PR, GR, $PR_R$, and ${\Delta}GR$ domain different from other types of ice such as ice type A, B, and C, and open water. This implies that glacial ice can be added as a new category of ice to the AMSR-E NASA Team2 sea ice algorithm.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.249-255
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• 2017

Antarctica isimportant area in order to understand climate change. In addition, this area is complex region where indicate warming and cooling trend according to previous studies. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the long-term variability of Antarctic energy budget. Net radiation, one of energy budget factor, is affected by albedo, and albedo cause negative radiative forcing. It is necessary to analyze a relationship between albedo and net radiation in order to analyze relationship between two factors in Antarctic climate changes and ice-albedo feedback. In thisstudy, we calculated net radiation using satellite data and performed an analysis of long-term variability of net radiation over Antarctica. In addition we analyzed correlation between albedo. As a results, net radiation indicates a negative value in land and positive value in ocean during study periods. As an annual changes, oceanic trend indicates an opposed to albedo. Time series pattern of net radiation is symmetrical with albedo. Correlation between the two factors indicate a negative correlation of -0.73 in the land and -0.32 in the ocean.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.36 no.2_2
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• pp.325-335
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• 2020

Forest canopy height can be used for estimate of above-ground forest biomass (AGB) by means of the allometric equation. The remote locations and harsh conditions of mangrove forests limit the number of field inventory data stations needed for large-scale modeling of carbon and biomass dynamics. Although active and passive spaceborne sensors have proven successful in mapping mangroves globally, the sensors generally have coarse spatial resolution and overlook small-scale features. Here we generate a 12 m spatial resolution mangrove canopy height map from TanDEM-X data acquired over the world largest intact mangrove forest located in the Sundarbans. With single-pol. TanDEM-X data from 2011 to 2013, the proposed technique makes use of the fact that the double-bounce scattering that occurs between the water and mangrove trees yields water surface level elevation over mangrove forest areas, thus allowing us to estimate forest height with the assumption of an underlying flat topography. Our observations have led to a large-scale mangrove canopy height map over the entire Sundarbans region at a 12 m spatial resolution. Our canopy height estimates were validated with ground measurements acquired in 2015, a correlation coefficient of 0.83 and a RMSE of 0.84 m. With globally available TanDEM-X data, the technique described here will potentially provide accurate global maps of mangrove canopy height at 12 m spatial resolution and provide crucial information for understanding biomass and carbon dynamics in the mangrove ecosystems.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.35 no.6_4
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• pp.1373-1389
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• 2019

KOMPSAT-5 is the first satellite in Korea equipped with X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) instrument and has been operated since August 2013. KOMPSAT-5 is used to monitor the global environment according to its observation purpose and the availability of KOMPSAT-5 is also highlighted as the need of high resolution wind data for investigating the coastal region. However, the previous study for the validation of wind derived from KOMPSAT-5 showed that the accuracy is lower than that of other SAR satellites. Therefore, in this study, we developed the correction equation of normalized radar cross section (NRCS or backscattering coefficient) for improvement of wind from the KOMPSAT-5 and validated the effect of the equation using the in-situ measurement of ocean buoys. Theoretical estimated NRCS and observed NRCS from KOMPSAT-5 showed linear relationship with incidence angle. Before applying the correction equation, the accuracy of the estimated wind speed showed the relatively high root-mean-square errors (RMSE) of 2.89 m s^-1 and bias of -0.55 m s^-1. Such high errors were significantly reduced to the RMSE of 1.60 m s^-1 and bias of -0.38 m s^-1 after applying the correction equation. The improvement effect of the correction equation showed dependency relying on the range of incidence angle.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.33 no.5_3
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• pp.773-786
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• 2017

This study was to analyze data of climate change impacts on social infrastructure using text-mining methodology, and to visualize the spatial information by integrating those with regional data layers. First of all, the study identified that the following social infrastructure; power, oil and resource management, transport and urban, environment, and water supply infrastructures, were affected by five kinds of climate factors (heat wave, cold wave, heavy rain, heavy snow, strong wind). Climate change impacts on social infrastructure were then analyzed and visualized by regions. The analysis resulted that transport and urban infrastructures among all kinds of infrastructure were highly impacted by climate change, and the most severe factors of the climate impacts on social infrastructure were heavy rain and heavy snow. In addition, it found out that social infrastructure located in Seoul and Gangwon-do region were relatively largely affected by climate change. This study has significance that atypical data in media was used to analyze climate change impacts on social infrastructure and the results were translated into spatial information data to analyze and visualize the climate change impacts by regions.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.603-616
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• 2016

In this study, the effects of differential heating by land-use types on flow and air temperature at an Seoul Automated Synoptic Observing Systems (ASOS) located at Songwol-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul was analyzed. For this, a computation fluid dynamics (CFD) model was coupled to the local data assimilation and prediction system (LDAPS) for reflecting the local meteorological characteristics at the boundaries of the CFD model domain. Time variation of temperatures on solid surfaces was calculated using observation data at El-Oued, Algeria of which latitude is similar to that of the target area. Considering land-use type and shadow, surface temperatures were prescribed in the LDAPS-CFD coupled model. The LDAPS overestimated wind speeds and underestimated air temperature compared to the observations. However, a coupled LDAPS-CFD model relatively well reproduced the observed wind speeds and air temperature, considering complicated flows and surface temperatures in the urban area. In the morning when the easterly was dominant around the target area, both the LDAPS and coupled LDAPS-CFD model underestimated the observed temperatures at the Seoul ASOS. This is because the Kyunghee Palace located at the upwind region was composed of green area and its surface temperature was relatively low. However, in the afternoon when the southeasterly was dominant, the LDAPS still underestimated, on the while, the coupled LDAPS-CFD model well reproduced the observed temperatures at the Seoul ASOS by considering the building-surface heating.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.36 no.5_3
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• pp.1077-1093
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• 2020

Sea Surface Temperature (SST) is an important environmental indicator that affects climate coupling systems around the world. In particular, coastal regions suffer from abnormal SST resulting in huge socio-economic damage. This study used Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) and Convolutional Long Short Term Memory (ConvLSTM) to predict SST up to 7 days in the south sea region in South Korea. The results showed that the ConvLSTM model outperformed the LSTM model, resulting in a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.33℃ and a mean difference of -0.0098℃. Seasonal comparison also showed the superiority of ConvLSTM to LSTM for all seasons. However, in summer, the prediction accuracy for both models with all lead times dramatically decreased, resulting in RMSEs of 0.48℃ and 0.27℃ for LSTM and ConvLSTM, respectively. This study also examined the prediction of abnormally high SST based on three ocean heatwave categories (i.e., warning, caution, and attention) with the lead time from one to seven days for an ocean heatwave case in summer 2017. ConvLSTM was able to successfully predict ocean heatwave five days in advance.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.35 no.6_1
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• pp.945-957
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• 2019

In this study, we propose a coarse to fine image registration method for eliminating geometric error between images over agricultural areas acquired using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). First, images of agricultural area were acquired using UAV, and then orthophotos were generated. In order to reduce the probability of extracting outliers that cause errors during image registration, the region of interest is selected by using the metadata of the generated orthophotos to minimize the search area. The coarse image registration was performed based on the extracted tie-points using the Speeded-Up Robust Features (SURF) method to eliminate geometric error between orthophotos. Subsequently, the fine image registration was performed using tie-points extracted through the Mutual Information (MI) method, which can extract the tie-points effectively even if there is no outstanding spatial properties or structure in the image. To verify the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method, a comparison analysis using 8 orthophotos was performed with the results of image registration using the SURF method and the MI method individually. As a result, we confirmed that the proposed method can effectively eliminated the geometric errors between the orthophotos.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.101-110
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• 2015

Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR) is affected by various noise source such as atmospheric artifact, orbital error, processing noise etc.. Especially, one of the dominant noise source for long-wave SAR system, such as ALOS PALSAR (L-band SAR satellite) is the ionosphere effect because phase delays on radar pulse through the ionosphere are proportional to the radar wavelength. To avoid misinterpret of phase signal in the interferogram, it is necessary to detect and correct ionospheric errors. Recently, a MAI (Multipler Aperture SAR Interferometry) based ionospheric correction method has been proposed and considered one of the effective method to reduce phase errors by ionospheric effect. In this paper, we introduce the MAI-based method for ionospheric correction. Moreover we propose an efficient method that apply the method over non-coherent area using directional filter. Finally, we apply the proposed method to the ALOS PALSAR pairs, which include the west sea coast region in Korea. A polynomial fitting method, which is frequently adopted in InSAR processing, has been applied for the mitigation of phase distortion by the orbital error. However, the interferogram still has low frequency of Sin pattern along the azimuth direction. In contrast, after we applied the proposed method for ionospheric correction, the low frequency pattern is mitigated and the profile results has stable phase variation values within ${\pm}1rad$. Our results show that this method provides a promising way to correct orbital and ionospheric artifact and would be important technique to improve the accuracy and the availability for L-band or P-band systems.