The Effection of Whitecaps on the Parameters Measured by Altimeter

Abstract

Under the impact of offshore rocks or high sea states such as typhoons, cyclone and so on, the sea water breaks into foams or is spilled into the air and becomes droplets. These foams and droplets cover the sea surface, which will attenuate or even absorb the electromagnetic wave emitted by the altimeter, and will affect the altimeter's measurements such as the sea surface height(SSH), the significant wave height(SWH) and the sea surface backscattering coefficientï³0. In this paper, the effect of sea foams and droplets on parameters measured by altimeter: backscattering coefficient ï³0, SSH and SWH and so on, is studied by means of electromagnetic scattering theory analysis, numerical calculation and simulation. Some data and error correction tables of some parameters are given, which are beneficial to business error correction.