Forward Propagation over Thick Oil Spills on Sea Surfaces for a Coastal Coherent Radar

The Ament model is a practical and fast means to evaluate the forward radar propagation over the sea surface in coastal environment. Based on the Rayleigh roughness parameter, it calculates the total coherent power received by an on-board antenna. Here, by extending the Rayleigh roughness parameter to the case of a rough layer, the Ament model extended to the case of rough layers (in which the two rough surfaces are uncorrelated) is presented. This new model is applied to the case of thick oil spills on the sea surface, for which numerical simulations are presented in order to study the possibility of detecting this pollution.