Angular variations of radar sea clutter: Airborne experiment and model comparison

We report on the study of an extensive fully-polarimetric X-band data set of airborne radar measurements collected in the Australian maritime environment, referred to as Ingara data. The grazing angles range from 15 to 45 degrees with a full 360 degree excursion in azimuth for various wind and sea state conditions. We unveil some original properties of the like- and cross-polarized radar cross section as a function of the scattering geometry and sea surface parameters. We also assess the performances and limitations of recent sea surface scattering models in the light of this rich data set.