Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa, 2015, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 93-101
Corrugated-pipe-like structures on satellite images of the sea surface and phenomenological model of their origin
K.D. Sabinin
1,2 , O.Yu. Lavrova
2 1 N.N. Andreyev Acoustics Institute, Moscow, Russia
2 Space Research Institute RAS, Moscow, Russia
The article considers peculiar structures whose surface manifestations were identified in the virtually simultaneous images of Envisat ASAR and TM Landsat-5 acquired 23 June 2011 over the Western part of the Black Sea. These corrugated-pipe-like structures are shaped by multiple quasi-regular circular slicks. We suggest that these structures are composed of surfactants involved in circular motion by inertial currents. Such slicks may be related to many spatially quasi-periodic phenomena near the sea surface, such as Langmur vortices, sea current fine structure, thermal inhomogeneities, etc. According to V.L. Lebedev model (Lebedev, 1968), we suppose that these slicks are formed at the border of an inertial-rotated water body in presence of a sea level slope. A phenomenological model explaining the origin of the corrugated-pipe-like structures on the sea surface is proposed.
Keywords: inertial oscillations, sea surface, remote sensing from space, surface-active materials, the Black Sea, TM Landsat-5
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