HF radar wave measurement in high sea-states

This paper presents data that extends the range of sea-states that have been considered in an ongoing study of the limitations of HF radar backscatter modelling. The wave measurements obtained confirm that the most significant effect is the overestimation in high frequency amplitude as the product of the significant waveheight and radar wavenumber increases. In these measurements this is partly compensated for by an underestimation in peak amplitude but this effect cannot be unambiguously attributed to model limitations. A calibration technique is proposed to deal with the problem pending the development of more accurate backscatter models