A numerical study of low-grazing-angle backscatter from ocean-like impedance surfaces with the canonical grid method

A numerical study of 14-GHz low-grazing-angle (LGA) backscattering from ocean-like surfaces described by a Pierson-Moskowitz spectrum is presented. Surfaces rough in one dimension are investigated with Monte Carlo simulations performed efficiently through use of the canonical grid expansion in an iterative method of moments. Backscattering cross sections are illustrated at angles from 81° to 89° from normal incidence under the impedance boundary condition (IBC) approximation with the efficiency of the numerical model enabling sufficiently large profiles (8192 λ) to be considered so that angular resolution problems can be avoided. Variations with surface spectrum low-frequency cutoff (ranging over spatial lengths from 175.5 m to 4.29 cm) at 3 m/s wind speed are investigated and initial assessments of the small perturbation method (SPM), composite surface theory, operator expansion method (OEM), small slope approximation (SSA), and curvature corrected SPM predictions are performed. Numerical results show an increase in horizontal (HH) backscatter returns as surface low-frequency content is increased while vertical (VV) returns remain relatively constant, as expected, but none of the approximate models considered are found to produce accurate predictions for the entire range of grazing angles. For the cases considered, HH scattering is always observed to be below VV, further demonstrating the importance of improved hydrodynamical models if “super-event” phenomena are to be modeled