A Numerical Study on Physical Characterizations of Microwave Scattering and Emission from Ocean Foam Layer

This paper presents a numerical study of microwave scattering and emission from a foamcovered ocean surface. The foam layer is modeled as an inhomogeneous layer with randomly rough airfoam and foam-seawater boundaries. Kelvin’s Tetrakaidecahedron structure is selected as the skeleton for simulating the air bubbles in the foam layer. The electromagnetic characteristics of the foam layer, including absorption and scattering coefficients for both vertical and horizontal polarizations, are calculated using a multilevel volume UV fast algorithm to accelerate the numerical computation of three dimensional Maxwell’s equations. The surface scattering at air-foam and foam-seawater interfaces is determined using the integral equation model (IEM). The microwave emission from the foam-covered ocean surface, which accounts for multiple incoherent interactions within the foam layer and between the foam and interfaces, is modeled using the vector radiative transfer approach and numerically solved using the matrix doubling method. The model analyses of volume scattering and absorption of the foam layer reveal that the volume scattering coefficient of a foam layer increases with increasing water fraction at all selected frequencies, and its polarization dependence is negligible at a water fraction less than 2%. At 10.8GHz and 18GHz, the H-polarized scattering coefficient is smaller than the V polarized scattering coefficient for a larger water fraction; the opposite occurs at 36.5GHz, at which V polarized scattering is weaker compared to H-polarized scattering. The model analyses of emission from a foam-covered ocean surface reveal that the emissivities at all selected operating frequencies have similar dependencies with water fraction and frequency, and they exhibit different sensitivities to water fractions. Moreover, the emissivities at high operating frequencies exhibit higher sensitivities to water fractions than the lower ones.