Estimating aircraft SAR response characteristics and ocean wave spectra in the Labrador Sea Extreme waves Experiment

The Labrador Extreme Waves Experiment (LEWEX) was an international effort to assess methods of measuring and modeling the directional aspects of wind-generated ocean waves, especially their evolution in the presence of rapidly turning winds. The author describes data-processing methods that have been developed to derive estimates of two-dimensional wave height-variance spectra from the ocean imagery obtained in LEWEX by a C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system aboard a Canadian CV-580 aircraft. SAR spectra at altitudes of 20000 and 12000 ft are compared for both large (~50°) and small (~25°) radar look angles. Independence spectral estimates from both a surface contour radar and a radar ocean wave spectrometer aboard a NASA aircraft are used to verify the surface wave spectrum