Retrieval of higher order ocean wave spectra from sunglint

Presented in this paper is a method of retrieving higher order statistical functions of the ocean wave surface from sunglint, or solar optical radiation specularly reflected from the surface. An expression was derived for the modelled slope probability density, which contains as parameters the desired cumulants and cumulant functions which we wish to retrieve. We then modelled the higher order statistical functions of the sunglint by integrating the slope density over a clipped domain representing the finite angular extent the solar disk subtends at the wave surface. This relationship was then inverted in order to retrieve the slope cumulant and cumulant functions from the corresponding functions of simulated sunglint data.