Measurement of the Microstructure of Ocean Surface Roughness
Abstract
This paper describes a technique to measure the spatial structure of short capillary-gravity waves in the ocean. The method is based on optical refraction of a single laser beam crossing the air-water interface to derive the surface slope information. By quickly scanning the laser beam, the spatial and temporal evolution of the surface undulation can be studied in great detail. The spatial measurement of the surface fluctuation also allows direct computation of the wave number spectrum in the capillary-gravity wave regime to avoid the difficulty of resolving the Doppler frequency shift as encountered in the processing of high frequency spectra derived from a single-point sensor.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 1996
- Accession Number
- ADA322128
Entities
People
- Paul Hwang
Organizations
- United States Naval Research Laboratory