Towards a Characterization of the Ka-Band Ocean Surface Backscattering Mechanisms.

The Ka-band wind scatterometry is a relatively new methodology to retrieve ocean surface winds. Modeling the Ka-band ocean surface backscatter is challenging, especially because of the lack of in-situ measurements. In the framework of the NASA Earth Ventures Suborbital-3 Submesoscale Ocean Dynamics Experiment (S-MODE) mission, a new data set of ocean surface backscatter has been collected. These measurements were obtained from a Ka-band Doppler scatterometer (KaBODS) located on the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Air-Sea Interaction Tower (ASIT). In this work we present our analysis and findings on the KaBODS backscatter measurements based on the development of a wind empirical backscatter model. We show that the data are characterized by a large variability, which is mainly due to intrinsic geophysical effects. The source of this geophysical variability is currently under investigation.