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The forward scattering of microwave solar radiation from a water surface
Author(s) -
Wentz F. J.
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
radio science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.371
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1944-799X
pISSN - 0048-6604
DOI - 10.1029/rs013i001p00131
Subject(s) - specular reflection , scattering , radiometer , microwave radiometer , optics , microwave , radiation , physics , perturbation (astronomy) , computational physics , computation , scalar (mathematics) , surface (topology) , surface roughness , mathematics , geometry , algorithm , quantum mechanics
The forward scattering of microwave solar radiation from a smooth and from a rough water surface is computed. The smooth surface is assumed specular, and the rough surface is represented by a two‐scale surface, for which two small‐scale perturbation parameters, 0.10 and 0.25, are considered. The contribution of the scattered sunlight to the antenna temperature is found using the scalar approximation, and the results are compared with radiometer measurements of the Cape Cod Canal. The overall agreement is good, but in some cases the smooth‐surface measurements are higher than the computations. This discrepancy possibly indicates an absolute calibration error or a slight misalignment of the antennas' boresights. The computations for the two perturbation parameters bracket the rough‐surface measurements except when the sun's mirror image is far removed from the boresight direction. The small disagreement in this case may be due to a peaked large‐scale slope distribution.