Inherent limitations in high frequency surface wave radar remote sensing based on Bragg scattering from Gaussian rough surfaces

An examination of the fluctuation in the Bragg spectral peaks in HF radar spectra of ocean backscatter is considered in the light of recent cross section models. It is well known that there are likely several factors giving rise to this phenomenon. Here we examine the effect which is caused purely in the context of a pulse Doppler radar being used to gather information from a time-varying random rough surface representable as a zero-mean, Gaussian random process. The finite width of the Bragg peak is presented as appearing naturally in the first-order cross section and the contribution to the power spectrum at each Doppler frequency point is seen to be affected by that at neighboring points.