Construction of sea surface current vectors using a single HF radar: A theoretical study

A technique called the stream and potential function method (SPFM) is presented to retrieve the sea surface current vector field from the radial-component measurements of only one high-frequency (HF) radar. SPFM estimates the surface current vector field jointly based on hydrodynamic constraints and a two-dimensional (2D) ocean current model. The current vector field is assumed to comprise two parts: nondivergent vortex flow and irrotational divergent flow; this guarantees that both the stream function and the potential function are considered. Physically, SPFM is embedded in a more physically consistent hydrodynamic framework that enables the spatiotemporal distribution characteristics of the current vector field at the sea surface to be effectively captured by a single HF radar. The evaluation of SPFM with HYCOM surface current dataset verifies that this approach is more reliable than the stream function method (SFM).