The Role of Micro Breaking of Small-Scale Wind Waves in Radar Backscattering from Sea Surface

Abstract

The study of the microwave scattering mechanisms of the sea surface is extremely important for the development of radar sensing methods. Some time ago, Bragg (resonance) scattering of electromagnetic waves from the sea surface was proposed as the main mechanism of radar backscattering at moderate incidence angles of microwaves. However, it has been recently confirmed that Bragg scattering is often unable to correctly explain observational data and that some other physical mechanisms should be taken into consideration. The newly introduced additional scattering mechanism was characterized as non-polarized, or non-Bragg scattering, from quasi-specular facets appearing due to breaking wave crests, the latter usually occurring in moderate and strong winds. In this paper, it was determined experimentally that such non-polarized radar backscattering appeared not only for rough sea conditions in which wave crests strongly break and “white caps” occur, but also at very low wind velocities close to their threshold values for the wave generation process. The experiments were performed using two polarized Doppler radars. The experiments demonstrated that a polarization ratio, which characterizes relative contributions of non-polarized and Bragg components to the total backscatter, changed slightly with wind velocity and wind direction. Detailed analysis of radar Doppler shifts revealed two types of scatterers responsible for the non-polarized component. One type of scatterer, moving with the velocities of decimeter-scale wind waves, determined radar backscattering at low winds. We identified these scatterers as “microbreakers” and related them to nonlinear features in the profile of decimeter-scale waves, like bulges, toes and parasitic capillary ripples. The scatterers of the second type were associated with strong breaking, moved with the phase velocities of meter-scale breaking waves and appeared at moderate winds additionally to the “microbreakers”. Along with strong breakers, the impact of microbreaking in non-polarized backscattering at moderate winds remained significant; specifically the microbreakers were found to be responsible for about half of the non-polarized component of the radar return. The presence of surfactant films on the sea surface led to a significant suppression of the small-scale non-Bragg scattering and practically did not change the non-Bragg scatterer speed. This effect was explained by the fact that the nonlinear structures associated with dm-scale waves were strongly reduced in the presence of a film due to the cascade mechanism, even if the reduction of the amplitude of dm waves was weak. At the same time, the velocities of non-Bragg scatterers remained practically the same as in non-slick areas since the phase velocity of dm waves was not affected by the film.