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Atmospheric duct estimation from multi-source radar sea clutter returns: theoretical framework and preliminary numerical results

  • Article
  • Atmospheric Science
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Chinese Science Bulletin

Abstract

Refractivity from clutter (RFC) technique estimates lower atmospheric refractivity from radar sea clutter returns. An important issue of RFC is how to make the estimate more robust. Rather than using only single beam radar sea clutter returns, this paper puts forward a theoretical framework of combining multi-source clutter power to improve the retrieved results by the variational adjoint approach. The derivation of the adjoint is accomplished by an analytical transformation of the parabolic equation model in a continuous domain. To test the theoretical algorithm, numerical simulations using multi-elevation clutter observations are carried. The results demonstrate that combining two elevation beams gives more stable estimate than using only single beam.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Prof. Peter Gerstoft at the Marine Physical Laboratory, University of California, San Diego, for helpful discussions about RFC problem. The refractivity data used in this paper are acquired from Prof. Peter Gerstoft’s software package SAGA. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41175025) and the National Basic Research Program of China (2011CB403500).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Meteorology and Oceanography, PLA University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 211101, China

    Xiaofeng Zhao & Sixun Huang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510301, China

    Xiaofeng Zhao & Dongxiao Wang

Authors
  1. Xiaofeng Zhao
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  2. Dongxiao Wang
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  3. Sixun Huang
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Correspondence to Xiaofeng Zhao.

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Zhao, X., Wang, D. & Huang, S. Atmospheric duct estimation from multi-source radar sea clutter returns: theoretical framework and preliminary numerical results. Chin. Sci. Bull. 59, 4899–4906 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-014-0428-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-014-0428-x

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