The RadScat experiment: preliminary results

During spring 1999 m experiment wm cmied out in Northern Adriatic Sea, on board the C.N.R. platform 'Acqua Alta', involving the ISDGM-Vensia md the IRODFirenze institutes. The aim wu to acquire simultmous time series of wind, temperaturs, microwave emissivity and radar backscatter. Duing the campaign trc distinct wind events occurred: a strong bora wind (8th md 9th April) coming from North-Eat, frequent for this ilea; and a sirocco storm (1iith and 16th April), from South- Est. This report analyses the recorded time series of sirocco, aiming to make deper the knowledge about this wind. Of pmticula interest is the statistical chileterisation of the wind stress, main engine for the air-sea intertrtioBThe second sstion of this report is devoted to briefly illustrate environmental conditions encoutered during the experiment. The third section reports a short description of the instruments used for this campaign, md their ilrmgement on the platfom. Wind data are illustrated md briefly commented in section 4, where all the principal geophysical qumtities ile reported: the main sources oferrors on wind and stress mesurs, with particulil reference to the K-Gill me!trometer, re discussed, and a short examination of their influence is carried out. Ltrt section of this report is devoted to the illustration of the microwave backscatter data ild the processing; in particular a pure geometric study about the chmges of the rada footprint trea ff a function of the gravity wave chuacteristics is given.