Remote Sensing of Sea State Using Ground Wave Radars

-The analysis techniques developed by Lipa and Barrick [1] for the extraction of long-wave ocean parameters from ground wave radar data are studied by applying them to data collected by two radars and comparing their results to those of a directional buoy. The first method estimates rms waveheight and parameters of the dominant ocean wave and it is found to have good agreement with the buoy so long as the ocean is dominated by long waves. The second method estimates the directional waveheight spectrum for long ocean waves and it is found that the results did not compare well with those of the buoy. This may be due in part to the assumptions of the analysis. Also, a study has been made to determine the properties of the offpatch second-order scatter (a multipathing effect). From examination of theoretical Doppler spectra generated from the model of offpatch scatter for various sea state conditions, it is determined that this form of scatter is not significant for wave estimation applications. However, it may be important for target detection problems.