Modeling of radar scattering from oil films

Oil films on the sea surface damp the capillary waves of the surface height spectrum. This hydrodynamic damping influences the normalized radar cross section (NRCS) of contaminated seas, comparatively to clean seas. First, a simple appropriate damping model is presented with parameters that match experimental results. Second, the two-dimensional bistatic NRCS of the contaminated sea surface is presented by comparison with that of a clean sea.