Remote Quantification of Nearshore Wave Energy Dissipation Rates from Coherent X-Band Radar Backscatter

We present an efficient, new methodology to remotely estimate nearshore wave energy dissipation using a shore based coherent-on-receive marine radar (CMR). The CMR measures the backscatter intensity as well as the Doppler shift velocity from the sea surface scattering. We show by comparisons to simulations that the spatial difference of the Doppler velocity is related to local roller dissipation rates. From the spatial distribution of the radar derived dissipation, the offshore significant wave height can be estimated with a root-mean-square error of 23 cm with bias of 4 cm when compared to a moored wave rider buoy at a distance of 1.1 km from the shore line.