Significant wave height retrieval based on the effective number of incoherent averages

Abstract

The effectiveness of incoherent averaging depends on the level of correlation between consecutive waveforms, which can vary with the geometry and with the sea state conditions. In addition it is also dependent on the lag position, since the level of correlation is not the same for all the lags. An initial estimation of the lag correlation can be done by means the ratio (R) between the actual number of incoherent averages and the effective number of incoherent averages. This work is structured in two parts: In the first part the concept of using of the ratio R as a new observable to estimate the significant wave height is detailed. In the second part, data from the TIGRIS experiment is used in order to relate the R with the significant wave height, comparing its performance with the performance obtained with the coherence time.