Potentialities of the Doppler spectrum of backscattered microwave signal in the problem of remote sensing of the sea surface

Information about sea waves and the near surface wind speed is very important for meteorology. It is well-known that this information, in principle, can be obtained from a backscattered microwave signal. Evidently, the sea state determines both spectral and power characteristics of backscattered microwave signal. However, usually only a radar cross section is used for retrieval of the near surface wind speed. Considering only a radar cross section we lose the important information about the movement of sea surface that can be used for retrieval of key sea state parameters. In this paper the new description of a sea state is suggested and basic features of the microwave Doppler spectrum are discussed. We consider some features of various sea states and analyze their manifestation in the Doppler spectrum.