Ocean Universal Scene (OCEANUS) Model

OCEANUS is a physics-based ocean background scene model that calculates water-leaving radiance and luminance that is of interest for remote sensing and battlespace sensor and system trade studies. It provides ocean scenes of the environmental radiance conditions in the UV/VIS/IR through modeling and simulation for development of optimal sensors and detection approaches, that takes into account geometries that intercept earth ocean backgrounds and includes any intervening clouds. OCEANUS characterizes the ocean spatially on a global scale for annual and multi-year cycles for local meteorological conditions (e.g., wind speed, direction, duration, and fetch), and accounts for the different ocean environments (e.g., open ocean, littoral, river mouths, estuaries), with the physical composition, dynamics, and marine boundary layer accounted for in each environment.

Current OCEANUS prototype development is focused on implementing a statistical ocean surface model that will use available climatology data and user-defined meteorological data, along with monthly variations in the global sea surface temperature, the global sea surface salinity, and the global sea ice, phytoplankton, CDOM, and suspended sediment distributions. OCEANUS will possess a software architecture designed to efficiently and seamlessly unify existing, improved, and/or new computer code, along with access to satellite measurements of ocean parameters, in a consistent and fully integrated computer environment that can be utilized by state-of-the-art background radiation codes, such as SAMM2, FLITES, and SSGM codes to meet missile warning/defense surveillance needs.

Shown below is a sample wave structure for a wind speed of 12 m/s (Beaufort Scale of 2) in a fully developed sea. The image is for a 250 × 250 m area, sampled at 1 meter. The vertical scale is exaggerated, but the significant wave height is 3.1 m and the maximum vertical variation in the scene is 4.8 m.

More details on the modeling capabilities can be found in the OCEANUS brochure.