Small scale properties of the radar backscatter from the sea surface at off nadir angles

The paper analyses coherent radar backscatter data from the sea surface at C-band and VV polarization, sampled at 300 Hz. The aim is to understand their usefulness in the investigation of the sea surface properties. The variability of the backscatter intensity I-bk at frequencies close to the Bragg frequency suggested a Bragg-like mechanism in the formation of the radar backscatter from patches of Bragg waves randomly distributed in the radar footprint. This led us to consider that both I-bk and the associated Doppler frequency f(d) have to be computed over time intervals of 0 (0.1) s, the periodicity of the Bragg waves at C-band and 45 degree of Incidence. Shorter time intervals would produce unrealistic estimates. This sets the lowest limit of data sampling for further research.