Experiments on Sea Level Measurements Using S-Band Interferometric Techniques

A remote interferometric method to measure sea level variations in coastal regions is discuss- ed and data of numerous experimental tests are summarized. The bistatic scheme of measurements is employed with horizontal separation of transmitter-receiver units ranging from 400 m to 2700 m. To account for an impact of sea surface roughness, the method incorporates a reflection coefficient phase measuring procedure. The phase of the coherent reflection coefficient measured in the experiments is presented as a function of sea state. The experiments were performed with electronic distance measurement equipment of a Tellurometer type. The typical error of sea level measurements obtained was about 3 cm. This error exceeds that theoretically predicted because of technical limitations of the equipment in meeting the requirements of the interferometric method.