A study of internal waves occurring in the northeastern South China Sea with ENVISAT-ASAR data is presented. Using the remote sensing analyzing approach

a group of parameters of the internal waves is retrieved from synthesize aperture radar(SAR) image. The influence of the topographic variation on the propagation of internal waves is analyzed and the relation between the topographic variation and parameters of the internal waves is given. It is concluded that the direction of internal waves is incompletely consistent with the gradation of benthal topography and that the variation of topography on the shelf is one of the important factors of nonlinear effect on the propagation of internal waves. It is beneficial to research on internal waves’ theory and retrieval modeling for internal waves’ parameters using remote sensing data.