[Invited Talk] Analysis and Observations of ocean wave measurements

Speaker: Dr. Susanne Stole-Hentschel

Susanne is currently a PostDoc in the ERC project HIGHWAVE at Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) Paris-Saclay. She has achieved her Master and PhD at the University of Oslo, Norway. With a background in applied maths and fluid mechanics, Susanne has worked with a number of different applications, ranging from biomedical flows to ocean waves. In recent years she has pursued the study of ocean waves by combining numerical simulations and measurements. One of her focus areas are the interpretation of radar measurements of the ocean surface. Extracting wave information from radar images requires to combine signal processing and an understanding of the imaging mechanism. Susanne is planning to relocate to Erlangen after her current position and is applying for funding, amongst others a Emmy Noether fellowship. To support the multi-disciplinary nature of her work, she would like to include one student with a background in „pattern recognition“ in her application.

Susanne will introduce some of the core techniques used for measurement ocean waves and outline why it is difficult to interpret those measurements.
The main focus of her talk will be dedicated to explain the imaging mechanism at play when X-band radars are employed. Amongst others, it will be shown how physical knowledge on the dispersion of waves can be used to filter the images. In addition the different imaging of breaking and non-breaking waves will be shown. Finally, the challenge of measuring waves under temporal evolution will be presented. Susanne is convinced that there are a number of techniques from the pattern recognition area that can be transferred to the ocean wave community. Any comments and suggestions to her work are welcome.