Verification of the sea surface radar models from collocated radar observations and stereo-photo imaging

In this paper we introduced some of the results that were recently obtained from the joint radar and stereo-photo field experiment. The technique described above allows for reliable verification of various models of radar backscattering from the sea surface. As the first step we found that in Ka-band the well-known inconsistence of the popular TSM cannot be explained by visible breaking waves only. Strong correlation between radar return and small scale glitters associated to microbreaking waves clearly demonstrate that the curvature effects are important to reproduce radar backscattering.