Analytical Studies of Scattering and Emission by the Sea Surface.

Abstract

Geometrical optics theories of scattering, transmission, and emission of electromagnetic radiation from two-dimensional, anisotropic, randomly rough surfaces have been formulated which explicitly include the effects of surface shadowing and double scatter. These theoretical developments, which have been fully documented in technical reports issued on this contract, are herein summarized in abstract form. Application of the emission and scattering theories to the modeling of sea brightness temperatures is discussed. The equations for the sea brightness temperature are numerically evaluated for microwave frequencies and the results compared with those of earlier models of Stogryn and of Wagner and Lynch. The second-order contributions, which prove to be appreciable, are examined in detail as a function of surface roughness, observation direction, and polarization. The quantitative dependence of the sea brightness temperature on frequency, polarization, observation angle, wind speed, fetch direction, atmospheric state, surface contamination, and water temperature is illustrated. The wavelength dependence of the emissivity of small-scale surface structure is examined using nongeometrical optics methods. (Author)

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 1972
Accession Number
AD0740237

Entities

People

  • Philip J. Lynch
  • Richard J. Wagner

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Brightness
  • Electromagnetic Radiation
  • Electromagnetic Wave Reflections
  • Emission
  • Frequency
  • Microwave Frequency
  • Microwaves
  • Observation
  • Optics
  • Polarization
  • Radiation
  • Roughness
  • Scattering
  • Surface Roughness
  • Two Dimensional

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Modeling, Data Assimilation, and Flux Boundary Layers
  • Plasma Physics / Magnetohydrodynamics
  • Wave Propagation and Nonlinear Chaotic Dynamics.