On radar signatures of atmospheric and oceanic phenomena

Abstract

Wind and current variations at the ocean surface can give rise to a modulation of the sea surface roughness and thus become visible in radar images. The discrimination between radar signatures of oceanic and atmospheric phenomena can be difficult, since signatures of different origin can have very similar shapes and magnitudes and are often superimposed upon each other. From an oceanographer's point of view it is therefore important to identify characteristics of radar signatures of atmospheric phenomena to distinguish them from those of oceanic phenomena as well as to profit from the information they contain on parameters like, e.g., wind speed. In this work the authors employ a numerical radar imaging model for an investigation of typical properties of radar signatures of atmospheric convective cells. They show that main characteristics of observed multifrequency/multipolarization radar signatures of atmospheric convective cells over the Gulf Stream are reproduced quite well by the proposed model. This encourages them to vary wind and radar parameters systematically in order to get an overview of the dependency of atmospherically induced radar signatures on these parameters.