Ocean Surface Roughness from Satellite Observations and Spectrum Modeling of Wind Waves

TL;DR

This paper utilizes satellite microwave remote sensing to measure ocean surface roughness across various frequencies, revealing a power-law relationship that enhances understanding of wind wave spectrum modeling and the role of wave breaking.

Contribution

It introduces lowpass mean square slope data from spaceborne microwave sensors and analyzes its spectral components, providing new insights into ocean surface roughness and wave breaking effects.

Findings

Surface roughness spectral components follow a power-law with an exponent of 0.38.

Wave breaking may act as both an energy sink and a source of roughness.

Spectral analysis covers wave numbers from 0.3 to 30 rad/m.

Abstract

Many wind wave spectrum models provide excellent wave height prediction given the input of wind speed and wave age. Their quantification of the surface roughness, on the other hand, varies considerably. The ocean surface roughness is generally represented by the mean square slope, its direct measurement in open ocean remains a challenging task. Microwave ocean remote sensing from space delivers ocean surface roughness information. Satellite platforms offer global coverage in a broad range of environmental conditions. This paper presents lowpass mean square slope (LPMSS) data obtained by spaceborne microwave altimeters and reflectometers operating at L, Ku, and Ka bands (about 1.6, 14, and 36 GHz). The LPMSS data represent the spectrally integrated ocean surface roughness with 11, 95, and 250 rad/m upper cutoff wave numbers, the maximum wind speeds are 80, 29, and 25 m/s, respectively. A better understanding of the ocean surface roughness is important to the goal of improving wind wave spectrum modeling. The analysis presented in this paper shows that over two orders of magnitude of the wave number range (0.3 to 30 rad/m), the spectral components follow a power function relating the dimensionless spectrum and the ratio between wind friction velocity and wave phase speed. The power function exponent is 0.38, which is considerable smaller than unity as expected from the classical equilibrium spectrum function. It may suggest that wave breaking is not only an energy sink but also a source of roughness generation covering a wideband of wavelengths about 20 m and shorter.