Microwave Specular Returns and Ocean Surface Roughness

TL;DR

This paper explores how microwave specular returns relate to ocean surface roughness, considering factors like wave tilt and foam effects, and provides modeled radar cross sections across various bands for high wind conditions.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive approach to modeling microwave specular returns from the ocean surface, accounting for tilt and foam effects, and offers modeled NRCS data for multiple frequency bands.

Findings

Modeled NRCSs for L, C, X, Ku, and Ka bands up to 99 m/s wind speeds.

Consideration of tilt modification and foam effects improves interpretation of microwave returns.

Challenges remain in acquiring high wind reference data for validation.

Abstract

Remote sensing measurements have been an important data source of ocean surface roughness. Scatterometers operating at moderate and high incidence angles provide information on the Bragg resonance spectral components of the ocean surface waves. Monostatic and bistatic reflectometers provide spectrally integrated information of ocean waves longer than several times the incident electromagnetic (EM) wavelengths. The integrated surface roughness is generally expressed as the lowpass mean square slope (LPMSS). Tilting modification of the local incidence angle for the specular facets located on slanted background surfaces is an important factor in relating the LPMSS and microwave specular returns. For very high wind condition, it is necessary to consider the modification of relative permittivity by air in foam and whitecaps produced by wave breaking. This paper describes the application of these considerations to monostatic and bistatic microwave specular returns from the ocean surface. Measurements from Ku band altimeters and L band reflectometers are used for illustration. It remains a challenge to acquire sufficient number of high wind collocated and simultaneous reference measurements for algorithm development or validation and verification effort. Solutions from accurate forward computation can supplement the sparse high wind databases. Modeled specular normalized radar cross sections (NRCSs) for L, C, X, Ku, and Ka bands with wind speeds up to 99 m/s are provided.