Articles | Volume 4, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-4-213-1997
© Author(s) 1997. This work is licensed under
the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.31 Dec 1997
31 Dec 1997
A fractal model for the sea state bias in radar altimetry
Abstract. The Kirchhoff approximation is used to determine the sea state bias in radar altimetry. A weakly nonlinear model of the sea waves is used to derive the joint moments of two different points separated by a distance R; the bias moment is formulated, and found for power law spectra. The method provides a consistent analysis of the sea state bias and avoids the need to truncate the high frequency tail of power-law wave spectra. The model exhibits dependence of the "electromagnetic bias" on the radar frequency, an effect observed in field experiments.