Determining Higher-Order Cumulants of Sea-Surface Slopes by Quasi-Vertical Radio Sounding Data

Abstract

This paper analyzes the possibilities and constraints in determining the skewness and kurtosis of slopes by radio sounding data at angles at which the backscattered signal is determined by quasi-specular reflection. It is shown that direct recovery of skewness and kurtosis based on the dependence of the normalized backscattering cross section on the incidence angle leads to significant errors. The determination of these parameters by minimizing the discrepancies between the empirical probability density and the truncated Gram—Charlier series given a priori depends significantly on the choice of this model.