Abstract
The study of dynamical processes at the sea surface interface using infrared image sequence analysis has gained tremendous popularity in recent years. Heat is transferred by similar transport mechanisms as gases relevant to global climatic changes. These similarities lead to the use of infrared cameras to remotely visualize and quantitatively estimate parameters of the underlying processes. Relevant parameters that provide important evidence about the models of air-sea gas transfer are the temperature difference across the thermal sub layer, the probability density function of surface renewal and the flow field at the surface. Being a driving force in air sea interactions, it is of equal importance to measure heat fluxes. In this paper we will present algorithms to measure the above parameters of air-sea gas transfer during night-time and show how to combine physical modeling and quantitative digital image processing algorithms to identify transport models. The image processing routines rely on an extension of optical flow computations to incorporate brightness changes in a total least squares (TLS) framework. Statistical methods are employed to support a model of gas transfer and estimate its parameters. Measurements in a laboratory environment were conducted and results verified with ground truth data gained from traditional measurement techniques.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
M. Campani and A. Verri, “Computing optical flow from an overconstrained system of linear algebraic equations,” in ICCV, Osaka, 1990, pp. 22-26.
P.V. Danckwerts, Gas-Liquid Reactions. MacGraw-Hill: New York, 1970.
G. Farnebäck, “Fast and accurate motion estimation using orientation tensors and parametric motion models,” in ICPR, Vol. 1, Barcelona, Spain, 2000, pp. 135-139.
C. Fennema and W. Thompson, “Velocity determination in scenes containing several moving objects,” Computer Graphics and Image Processing, Vol. 9, pp. 301-315, 1979.
D.J. Fleet, Measurement of Image Velocity, Kluwer Academic Publishers: Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 1992.
C.S. Garbe, “Measuring heat exchange processes at the air-water interface from thermographic image sequence analysis,” Ph.D. Thesis, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany, 2001.
C.S. Garbe, H. Haußecker, and B. Jähne, “Measuring the sea surface heat flux and probability distribution of surface renewal events,” in Gas Transfer at Water Surfaces, E. Saltzman, M. Donelan, and others (Eds.), Geophysical Monograph, American Geophysical Union, 2001.
C.S. Garbe and B. Jähne, “Reliable estimates of the sea surface heat flux from image sequences,” in Proc. of the 23rd DAGM Symposium. Springer-Verlag, Munich, Germany, 2001, pp. 194-201.
C.S. Garbe, U. Schimpf, and B. J ähne, “Measuring important parameters for air-sea heat exchange,” in ThermoSense, X.P. Maldague and A.E. Rozlosnik (Eds.), Vol. 4710, SPIE, Orlando, Florida, 2002, pp. 171-182.
H. Haußecker and D.J. Fleet, “Computing optical flow with physical models of brightness variation,” PAMI, Vol. 23, No. 6, pp. 661-673, 2001.
H. Haußecker, C. Garbe, H. Spies, and B. Jähne, “A total least squares for low-level analysis of dynamic scenes and processes,” in DAGM, Springer, Bonn, Germany, 1999, pp. 240-249.
H. Haußecker, U. Schimpf, C.S. Garbe, and B. Jähne, “Physics from IR image sequences: Quantitative analysis of transport models and parameters of air-sea gas transfer,” in Gas Transfer at Water Surfaces, E. Saltzman, M. Donelan, and others (Eds.), Geophysical Monograph, American Geophysical Union, 2001.
H. Haußecker and H. Spies, “Motion,” in Handbook of Computer Vision and Applications, B. Jähne, H. Haußecker, and P. Geißler (Eds.), Vol. 2, Academic Press, Ch. 13, 1999.
B.K.P. Horn and B. Schunk, “Determining optical flow,” Artificial Intelligence, Vol. 17, pp. 185-204, 1981.
Q. Huynh and G. Veronis, “The effect of temperature-dependent exchange coefficients on poleward heat flux by oceanic gyres,” Dynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 49-66, 1981.
B. Jähne and H. Haußecker, “Air-water gas exchange,” Annual Reviews Fluid Mechanics, Vol. 30, pp. 443-468, 1998.
B. Jähne, P. Libner, R. Fischer, T. Billen, and E.J. Plate, “Investigating the transfer process across the free aqueous boundary layer by the controlled flux method,” Tellus, Vol. 41B, No. 2, pp. 177-195, 1989.
I.S.F. Jones and Y. Toba, Wind Stress over the Ocean, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2001.
R. Kleeman, B.J. McAvaney, and R.C. Balgovind, “Analysis of the interannual heat flux response in an atmospheric general circulation model in the tropical Pacific,” Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 99, No. D3, pp. 5539-5550, 1994.
A.N. Kolmogorov, “A refinement of previous hypotheses concerning the local structure of turbulence in a viscous incompressible fluid at high reynolds number,” Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Vol. 13, pp. 82-85, 1962.
B. Lucas and T. Kanade, “An iterative image registration technique with an application to stereo vision,” in DARPA Image Understanding Workshop, 1981, pp. 121-130.
O. Nestares, D.J. Fleet, and D. Heeger, “Likelihood functions and confidence bounds for total-least-squares problems,” in CVPR00, Vol. 1, 2000.
P.J. Olver, Applications of Lie Groups to Differential Equations, Springer-Verlag, 1986.
C.A. Paulson and J.J. Simpson, “The temperature difference across the cool skin of the ocean,” Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 86, No. C11, pp. 11044-11054, 1981.
K.N. Rao, R. Narasimah, and M.B. Narayanan, “The 'bursting' phenomenon in a turbulent boundary layer,” Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Vol. 48, pp. 339-352, 1971.
R.K. Reed, “Effects of surface heat flux during the 1972 and 1982 El Nino episodes,” Nature, Vol. 322, No. 6078, pp. 449–450, 1986.
U. Schimpf, H. Haußecker, and B. Jähne, “Studies of air-sea gas transfer and micro turbulence at the ocean surface using passive thermography,” in The Wind-Driven Air-Sea Interface: Electromagnetic and Acoustic Sensing, Wave Dynamics and Turbulent Fluxes, Banner, M.L. (Ed.), Sydney, Australia, 1999.
A.V. Soloviev and P. Schlüssel, “Parameterization of the cool skin of the ocean and the air-ocean gas transfer on the basis of modeling surface renewal,” Journal of Physical Oceanography, Vol. 24, No. 6, pp. 1339-1346, 1994.
A.V. Soloviev and P. Schlüssel, “Evolution of cool skin and direct air-sea gas transfer coefficient during daytime,” Boundary-Layer Meteorology, Vol. 77, pp. 45-68, 1996.
H. Spies, H. Haußecker, B. Jähne, and J.L. Barron, “Differential range flow estimation,” in DAGM, Bonn, Germany, 1999, pp. 309-316.
G. Taylor, “The spectrum of turbulence,” in Proc. Royal Society, Vol. 102, 1938, pp. 817-822.
S. Van Huffel and J. Vandewalle, The Total Least Squares Problem: Computational Aspects and Analysis, Philadelphia: Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, 1991.
J.E. Walsh, “Sea breeze theory and applications,” Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Vol. 31, No. 8, pp. 2012-2066, 1974.
G.A. Wick, W.J. Emery, L.H. Kantha, and P. Schlüssel, “The behavior of the bulk-skin sea surface temperature difference under varying wind speed and heat flux,” Journal of Physical Oceanography, Vol. 26, pp. 1969-1988, 1996.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Garbe, C.S., Spies, H. & Jähne, B. Estimation of Surface Flow and Net Heat Flux from Infrared Image Sequences. Journal of Mathematical Imaging and Vision 19, 159–174 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026233919766
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026233919766