Abstract
The surface imprints of atmospheric and oceanic vortex streets in the vicinity of islands of the
northwestern Pacific Ocean were found in fields of sea surface roughness on radar images. The
images were obtained by an X-band side-looking real aperture radar (RAR) from the Okean se
ries satellites and an S-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) from ERS-1/2. The broad swath width
(460 km) and a spatial resolution of 1-2 km of the RAR allow estimation of the characteristic
parameters of atmospheric vortices and vortex street evolution downstream. A comparison of
visible/IR images with radar images has shown that sharp gradients of surface winds were ob
served near boundaries of cloud vortices. The detailed structure of the oceanic vortices and vortex
streets formed by the Kuroshio east of Taiwan and tidal currents west of Taiwan was revealed with
ERS SAR images.
