Sea Surface Roughness Determination from Grazing Angle GPS Ocean Observations and Scatterometry Simulations

Abstract

Measurements of grazing angle GNSS-R ocean reflections combined with meteorological troposphere data are used for retrieval of ocean wave heights and surface roughness parameters. The observational results are compared to multiphase screen simulations for the same atmosphere conditions. The retrieved data from observations and simulations give equal results within the error bounds of the methods. The obtained ocean mean wave-heights are almost proportional to the square of the wind speed when applying a first-order approximation model to the high-wave-number part of the measured GNSS-R power spectra. The spectral variances from the measurements link directly to the ocean surface roughness, which is also verified by the performed multiple phase-screen wave propagation simulations. Thus, grazing angle GNSS-R techniques are an efficient method for determining the ocean state and the conditions in the boundary layer of the troposphere.