Short-time deterministic prediction of individual waves based on space-time X-band Marine radar measurements

Abstract

We demonstrate and verify, by the use of both synthetic and real wave data, a newly developed capability of short-time phase-resolved wave prediction based on incoherent X-band marine radar measurements. An inversion algorithm is developed to convert X-band radar sea surface measurements into the phase-resolved wave field and the associated wave spectrum based on the linear gravity wave theory. The wave components obtained from the reconstruction are then used to initialize the wave propagation model that is used to provide a short-time deterministic forecast of wave field evolution downstream. Both wave spectrum and spatial-temporal wave elevation evolution obtained based on the X-band measurements are compared with the independent point wave measurements by Miros RangeFinder. The agreements between them are reasonably well, which has a significant implication on practical applications of short-time deterministic wave prediction in optimal marine operations.