ANALYSIS OF MARINE RADAR IMAGE SPECTRA COLLECTED DURING THE GRAND-BANKS ERS-1 SAR WAVE EXPERIMENT

Remote measurements of wave spectra were made using MacLaren Plansearc h's Marine Radar Wave Measuring System (MACRADAR(C)) for the duration of the ERS-1 Grand Banks Experiment (10-27 November 1991). The system consists of a FURUNO X-band marine navigation radar and a personal com puter. The system was installed and operated onboard the BIO Research vessel CSS Hudson during the experiment. The radar system provides ful ly directional wave spectra in real time (within minutes of image acqu isition) as well as archiving of the raw images for future analysis. D uring each of the satellite overpasses, excellent data were collected, covering a variety of wave conditions. This paper describes the data analysis procedures and presents the results of the experiment. In add ition, a sensitivity analysis is carried out to study: (1) sensitivity to the number of radar images processed on the resultant spectra, (2) effect of missing one or more images in a dataset, and (3) sensitivit y to azimuth angle variation. Finally, the results are compared with c orresponding directional wave spectra from other sensors (such as WAVE C Buoy and ERS-1 SAR).