A new model for sea clutter

First-order (small roughness amplitude) scattering theory is applied to obtain sea clutter cross sections in terms of mean-squared height spectrum of the sea surface. The results are in remarkably good agreement with observations for vertical polarization at <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">P-, L-, C-</tex> , and <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">X</tex> -bands. Modification of the calculation to take into account the larger scale structure of the sea surface yields reasonable agreement for horizontal polarization at <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">P</tex> - and <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">L</tex> -bands but is less successful for the cross-polarized and horizontal cross sections at <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">C</tex> - and <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">X</tex> -bands.