Properties of polarimetric sea clutter at 35 GHz

The FGAN operated MEMPHIS radar was used to measure the backscatter behaviour of sea clutter at 35 GHz. The resulting fully polarimetric, carefully calibrated reflectivity data were analysed with respect to their temporal and spatial characteristics. Temporal decorrelation is fast, accordingly the polarimetric persistence is very low. As to spatial statistics, several well-known probability density functions like redistribution or log-normal are compared to each other. It is found that none of them is ideal. There is always a number of outliers that statistically behave differently. By eliminating them the goodness of the fit can be improved.