Breaking and non-breaking waves in the nearshore observed by different coherent X-band radars - Part I Observations

Observations of nearshore waves and wave breaking with two different coherent radars at X-band and two different beaches are presented and compared.These were mostly under low grazing angle conditions, with a wide span of wave and wind conditions, including varying steepness, dispersion and degree of non-linearity, as well as breaking and non-breaking waves.While some of these data has been presented before, the present work offers a unique perspective in comparing observations, which could allow an improved understanding of the effect of environmental conditions and system parameters, with the long term goal of assessing the performance of backscattering models.The analysis includes statistical methods to wave ensembles, as well as individual wave evolution as they shoal and progress towards the shoreline.Observations among systems compare reasonably well, and most of the results can be interpreted with existing backscattering models.However, some discrepancies are found, which require a more in depth analysis.