SAR and multispectral imagers seem to be best for tracking (mapping) surface oil slicks. What is the added value of including a thermal infrared scanner? Can thermal IR provide rough estimates of oil slick thickness? How reliable would be the TIR results?
Theoretically TIR sensors should be usefull, since the oil slick and the surrounding sea water would have different temperature. This difference would be the maximum when the slick occurr and then decreasing with time, but still existing since the different heating power in respect to the solar thermal irradiation. However I am not sure that this will result in a temperature difference easily appreciable from remote sensing.
Concerning the estimation of the oil slick thinkess, I see a possible scenarion (even if I didn't found any in literature).
1) The oil slick is detected by e.g. SAR technique
2) Using two TIR bands you can calculate the SST from the sea water and for the oil slick. To do so you have to consider that the oil slick has a different emissivity from the sea water, to be kept in account if you e.g. apply a Split Window algorithm
3) You should perform point 1) and 2) at least 2 times
4) You then can calculate the heating power of oil slick vs sea water
5) Theoretically you can link this difference to the thickness of the oil slick
As I said it is a possible scenario, with some difficulties.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Geoscience
- Remote Sensing