The statistical description of ocean clutter, which is made use of by
the modern clutter suppression algorithms, is examined for sea states
0 and 4, for a grazing angle range 0.14 degrees less than or equal to
theta(gr) less than or equal to 89.5 degrees, for all polarizations, a
nd for upwind and crosswind returns. The data for statistical descript
ion are obtained by a radar simulation program in which the electromag
netic pulses are traced in a user defined radar environment. In this s
imulation environment, the returns which are backscattered from the oc
ean surface are recorded individually along with their polarization, a
mplitude, phase, arrival time and Doppler shift. Based on the likeliho
od ratios of commonly used Rayleigh, Lognormal, Weibull and K-distribu
tion families, the best fitting distributions to the observed data are
chosen. When the results obtained are compared with those available i
n the literature, a good agreement is observed. Due to the limitations
of experimental studies, the data necessary for the statistical descr
iption of the amplitude and the power of clutter are either not availa
ble or scarce for various sea states, grazing angles, polarizations an
d wind directions. For those cases where the statistical description i
s not available in the literature, the simulation program provides an
inexpensive and reliable environment to obtain the best fitting distri
butions, which is an important ingredient of the modern clutter suppre
ssion algorithms.