Simultaneous Measurement of Air-water Interface Slope and the Point Spread Function for the Propagation of Laser Light

: The long-term goal of this project is to measure, understand and be able to predict the propagation of light through the air-sea interface under various sea states. The objectives include: (1) Characterization of the point spread function of underwater light that has gone through the air water interface with exact coincident measurement of the surface wave field. (2) Analysis of this data to formulate either empirical or theoretical relationships between the sea surface and the observed light spreading. (3) Incorporation of the above results into an analysis and understanding of how difficult it will be to obtain detailed images through the air-sea interface as a function of sea state.