An Empirical Approach for the Retrieval of Integral Ocean Wave Parameters from Synthetic Aperture Radar Data

Abstract

In this study a new empirical approach to retrieve integral 1 ocean wave parameters from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data is presented. The idea behind this computationally e_cient technique is to estimate integral ocean wave parameters without the intermediate step of retrieving the 2-D ocean wave spectrum. The method has the radiometrically calibrated SAR image as the only source of information and is based on a quadratic model function with 22 input parameters. These parameters include the radar cross section, the image variance and 20 parameters computed from the SAR im age variance spectrum using a set of orthonormal functions. The coe_cients of the quadratic function were _tted for the estimation of Hs, the mean peri ods Tm01; Tm02; T