Abstract
Field experiments have shown that breaking ocean waves may register as discrete events in passive acoustic and active microwave remote sensing measurements of the ocean surface. Using a laboratory model of deep-water wave breaking1,2 we show here that the noise generated by breaking and the radar cross-section of breaking waves both correlate with the dissipation of surface wave energy. Our results imply that these remote sensing techniques ultimately may be used to measure the dynamics of breaking waves, and are not restricted simply to obtaining the statistics and kinematics of breaking.
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References
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Melville, W., Loewen, M., Felizardo, F. et al. Acoustic and microwave signatures of breaking waves. Nature 336, 54–56 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1038/336054a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/336054a0
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