Observations And Modelling of Propagation Loss In The Turbulent Sea Surface Environment

The paper presents a case study investigating the effect of turbulence on microwave X-band reception. Path loss estimates for the X-band link operated during the Tropical Air-Sea Propagation Study (TAPS) in the Coral Sea in November-December 2013 have been modelled with refractivity profiles derived from a bulk parameterization based on Monin-Obukov similarity theory using near surface data that was co-recorded on a suitably located open sea jetty site. The results reported show that including stochastic effects in the environmental propagator of the Parabolic Equation Method (PEM), appropriate to the sea surface environment at the time of the RF reception measurements, improves on the predictive modelling of the path loss measurements.