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

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 Ibk 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 fd have to be computed over time intervals of O(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 researc