Title :
Remote sensing of sea state by analysis of backscattered microwave phase fluctuations
Author :
Clifford, S.F. ; Barrick, D.E.
Author_Institution :
Environmental Research Laboratories, NOAA, Boulder, CO, USA
fDate :
9/1/1978 12:00:00 AM
Abstract :
The relative phase of a normally incident microwave signal scattered off the sea surface is a random function of space and time. The statistics of these random phase fluctuations contain information about the wave-height statistics. This study demonstrates that the wave-height spectra can be deduced directly in terms of the spectra of the phase fluctuations without recourse to inversion techniques even when surface roughness exceeds many wavelengths of the incident signal. In the particular case of a nadir-directed satellite-mounted microwave source operating in the backscatter mode, the wave-height and phase spatial spectra are proportional with a constant proportionality of

, where

is the wavenumber of the scattered signal.
Keywords :
Sea surface electromagnetic scattering; Spectral analysis; Fluctuations; Microwave theory and techniques; Optical scattering; Optical surface waves; Remote sensing; Rough surfaces; Sea surface; Signal analysis; Surface roughness; Surface waves;
Journal_Title :
Antennas and Propagation, IEEE Transactions on
DOI :
10.1109/TAP.1978.1141915