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ISSN 2070-7401 (Print), ISSN 2411-0280 (Online)
Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa
CURRENT PROBLEMS IN REMOTE SENSING OF THE EARTH FROM SPACE

  

Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa, 2025, V. 22, No. 3, pp. 268-278

On variations of radar backscatter due to short wind waves in a long-wave field

S.A. Ermakov 1, 2, 3 , V.A. Dobrokhotov 1 , I.A. Sergievskaya 1, 2, 3 , T.N. Lazareva 1 
1 Institute of Applied Physics RAS, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
2 Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
3 Volga State University of Water Transport, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
Accepted: 14.05.2025
DOI: 10.21046/2070-7401-2025-22-3-268-278
An effect of suppression of Ka-band radar backscatter from short wind gravity-capillary waves (GCW) after the passage of a train of intense long meter-scale waves (LW), the radar trace, was investigated in a laboratory experiment. It is obtained that radar backscatter intensity in the area of a non-breaking LW train can increase by an order of magnitude or more, Doppler spectra of the radar signal become wider, and polarization ratio is close to 1, all this is typical of the case of micro GCW breaking. The backscatter suppression in the wake reaches 1–2 orders of magnitude that is weaker than in the wake we previously found for breaking LW with overturning crests. The radar trace in the last case was explained by the turbulence excited by the strong LW breaking which resulted in suppression of short wind GCW. The theoretical interpretation of the radar trace for non-breaking LW is based on the effect of enhancement of wind drift near the crests of LW leading to micro breaking of GCW. Small mm-cm-scale structures formed on the GCW profile determine the radar backscatter enhancement in the LW train. The existence of the radar trace is determined by the relaxation of GCW to their undisturbed level in the absence of LW.
Keywords: microwave radar scattering from the water surface, radar trace, wind drift, wave breaking of small-scale wind waves on long wave crests
Full text

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