Remote sensing of the sea waves by the dual-frequency precipitation radar: First results

The dual-frequency precipitation radar (DPR) was launched in 2014 to make precipitation measurements. Simultaneous measurements at two frequencies open up new vistas in monitoring sea waves and near-surface wind speed. At small incidence angles, the DPR can measure the variance of large-scale slopes of sea waves (or large-scale mean square slopes - mss). A slope retrieval algorithm was developed for Ka-band. Comparison of the large-scale mss in Ka-band and Ku-band has shown that the large-scale mss in Ka-band is larger than the large-scale mss in Ku-band. This result will permit to improve the two-scale model applied for calculation of the signal reflected from sea surface.