CHIN. PHYS. LETT. Vol. 29, No.

7 (2012) 074210

*
Electromagnetic Wave Propagation over Oil-Covered Sea Surface
YANG Chao(杨超)1** , JIN Wei(靳伟)1 , GUO Li-Xin(郭立新)2
1
School of Science, Xi’an University of Posts and Telecommunications, Xi’an 710121
2
School of Science, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071

(Received 20 March 2012)

An exhaustive analysis of electromagnetic wave propagation over an oil-covered sea surface in an evaporation duct
environment is studied in comparison with those of the oil-free sea surface. Instead of using the traditional rms
height formula, which only considers the oil-free sea surface, we reduce the rms height of a one-dimensional oil-
covered sea surface based on the Pierson–Moskowitz sea spectrum. Then, the electromagnetic wave propagation
over the oil-covered sea surface in an evaporation duct environment with different wind speeds and frequencies is
discussed by the parabolic equation for a fully oil-covered sea surface. In addition, the influence of the fractional
filling factor on the electromagnetic wave propagation over non-fully oil-covered sea surface is also investigated.
The results show that the oil film can reduce the sea surface roughness and strengthen the trapping effect in an
evaporation duct environment.

PACS: 42.25.Dd, 41.20.Jb, 42.68.Ay DOI: 10.1088/0256-307X/29/7/074210

As the marine environment becomes increasingly
complicated, a series of new problems are con-
fronted with all aspects of the fields of ocean remote
sensing,[1,2] such as the accidental oil-spills, sea bio-
genic slicks, etc. These phenomena would produce a
layer of oil film floating on the sea surface and more
importantly could pose a threat to marine ecosys-
tems and influence the ocean-atmosphere interaction.
As a consequence, great attention has been paid to
this problem which is of public concern. The pres-
ence of the oil film floating on the sea surface physi-
cally damps the short waves of the sea surface spec-
trum, and changes the rms height, the rms slope, and
so on.[3] Consequently, the electromagnetic scattering
from and the electromagnetic wave propagation over
the oil-covered sea surface will be different from those
of the oil-free one. Many researchers have focused on
studying the electromagnetic scattering from the oil-
covered sea surface. Both the numerical method and
the asymptotic method[3,4] are used to analyze the
influence of the oil-covered sea surface on the scat-
tering coefficient. A two-scale boundary perturbation
method contrast model for biogenic surface slicks has
been developed and successfully tested on synthetic
aperture radar (SAR) data.[2] Moreover, a new polari-
metric model for SAR oil slick observation has been
developed.[5]
This study concerns the problem of electromag-
netic wave propagation over the oil-covered sea sur-
face. The relation between the rms height of a one-
dimensional oil-covered sea surface and wind speed
is derived based on the commonly used Pierson–
Moskowitz (PM) sea surface spectrum, and the cal-
culations are then presented in comparison with those
of the oil-free sea surface. In addition, the electromag-
netic wave propagation over a non-fully oil-covered sea
surface is also investigated.
The oil-covered sea surface model is obtained from
the fully developed oil-free sea surface model. Given
the one-dimensional oil-free sea surface spectrum, the
corresponding rms height 𝜁𝑓 can be calculated by[6]
∫︁ ∞
𝜁𝑓 = [2 𝑊 (𝑘)𝑑𝑘]1/2 , (1)
0
where 𝑊 (𝑘) represents the one-dimensional oil-free
sea surface spectrum. When modeling the electro-
magnetic wave propagation over the sea surface, the
one-dimensional PM sea surface spectrum[7] is mainly
considered,
𝛼 (︁ 𝛽𝑔 2 )︁
𝑊 (𝑘) = exp − 4 , (2)
4|𝑘|3 𝑘 2 𝑈19.5
where 𝛼 = 8.10 × 10−3 and 𝛽 = 0.74 are dimensionless
parameters, 𝑔 = 9.81 m/s2 is the acceleration of grav-
ity at the Earth’s surface, 𝑈19.5 represents the wind
speed measured at a height of 19.5 m above the mean
height of sea surface in units of m/s, and 𝑘 is the
wavenumber.
Due to the presence of the oil film, influence of the
oil film on the oil-free sea surface spectrum should be
taken into account. Lombardini et al.[8] showed that a
damping effect can be found in the process of simulat-
ing the oil-covered sea surface spectrum. Compared

* Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No 60971067, the Specialized Research Fund

for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education under Grant No 20100203110016, the Doctorial Start-up Fund (No 0001292) and
the Youth Foundation (No 1050410) of Xi’an University of Posts and Telecommunications, and the Scientific Research Program
Funded by Shaanxi Provincial Education Department (No 12JK0964).
** Corresponding author. Email: yang_chaomail@163.com

© 2012 Chinese Physical Society and IOP Publishing Ltd

074210-1
 CHIN. PHYS. LETT. Vol. 29, No. 7 (2012) 074210
to the oil-free sea surface spectrum, one can observe
that oil film strongly damps the short waves (high
frequency parts), which corresponds to the capillary
waves. According to Ref. [8], the oil-covered sea sur-
face spectrum 𝑊𝑐 (𝑘) can be expressed by the oil-free
one using the damping attenuation coefficient,
𝑊 (𝑘)
𝑊𝑐 (𝑘) = , (3)
𝑦D (𝑓, 𝐸0 , 𝜔D )
where 𝑦D is the damping attenuation coefficient given
by
1 ± 2𝜏 + 2𝜏 2 − 𝑋 + 𝑌 (𝑋 + 𝜏 )
𝑦D (𝑓, 𝐸0 , 𝜔D ) = , (4)
1 ± 2𝜏 + 2𝜏 2 − 2𝑋 + 2𝑋 2
with dimensionless parameters
(︁ 𝜔 )︁1/2
D
𝐸0 𝑘 2 𝐸0 𝑘
𝜏= , 𝑋= 3 1/2
, 𝑌 = ,
2𝜔 (2𝜂𝜔 ) 4𝜂𝜌𝜔
3 1/2
𝜔 (𝜍𝑘 /𝜌 + 𝑔𝑘)
𝑓= = .
2𝜋 2𝜋
Equation (6) is the dispersion law, 𝑓 denotes the fre-
quency, 𝜔 represents the angular frequency, 𝐸0 is the
elasticity modulus in units of N/m, 𝜌 = 103 kg/m3
is the water density, 𝜂 = 10−6 m/s2 is the kinematic
viscosity, 𝜍 = 74 × 10−3 N/m is the surface tension
and 𝜔D stands for the characteristic frequency, which
depends on the diffusion relaxation for soluble films
and on the structural relaxation between intermolec-
ular forces for insoluble films. Thus, 𝑦D depends on
the frequency 𝑓 or the wavenumber 𝑘, 𝐸0 , and 𝜔D . In
Eq. (4), a plus sign refers to the soluble film, whereas
a minus sign refers to the insoluble film. In this study,
we will primarily focus on the insoluble oil-covered sea
surface.
In general, the damping attenuation coefficient 𝑦𝑃
should not be directly interpreted as corresponding to
Eq. (4). When the sea surface is only partially covered
with an oil film, a fractional filling factor 𝐹 , i.e., the
ratio of the area covered by the oil film with respect
to the total area considered, is introduced, and the
corresponding damping attenuation coefficient can be
rewritten as
𝑦𝑃 = (1 − 𝐹 + 𝐹/𝑦D )−1 .
When we handle the non-fully oil-covered sea surface,
the corresponding sea surface spectrum can be ob-
tained by substituting Eq. (7) into Eq. (3). Obviously,
from Eq. (7), one can observe that as a fully oil-covered
sea surface is considered, we have 𝐹 = 1 ⇒ 𝑦𝑃 = 𝑦D .
For the purpose of obtaining the relation between
the rms height of a one-dimensional oil-covered sea
surface and wind speed, Eq. (1) should be modified by
substituting 𝑊 (𝑘) in Eq. (1) with 𝑊𝑐 (𝑘) in Eq. (3),
and the rms height 𝜁𝑐 of an oil-covered sea surface can
be described by the relation
∫︁ ∞
𝜁𝑐 = [2 𝑊𝑐 (𝑘)𝑑𝑘]1/2 . (8)
0
The integration in Eq. (8) can be conveniently solved
with numerical integration.
To model the electromagnetic wave propagation
over the rough sea surface, it is necessary to include
the electromagnetic scattering mechanisms and sea
surface roughness related to rms height to achieve
more accurate results, since the propagation loss and
radar coverage is greatly affected by sea surface rough-
ness as well as the ducting environment caused by the
abnormal atmospheric condition.[9,10] Therefore, when
modeling long-range electromagnetic wave propaga-
tion over a rough sea surface, it is of great importance
to incorporate the scattering model related to a rough
sea surface into the propagation model. However,
(5)
when the sea surface encounters the problem of oil film
floating on it, the sea surface roughness, the character-
(6)
istic parameters of sea surface and the electromagnetic
scattering mechanisms will be somewhat changed. In
order to take the sea surface roughness and the scat-
tering mechanisms into consideration, the most com-
monly used closed-form scattering models[10−13] are
the Ament model and Mill–Brown model, which are
based on the well-known Kirchhoff approximation. In
recent years, there has been an everlasting debate on
the accuracy of the scattering models. In Ref. [11] the
authors showed that the Ament model is in agreement
with the experimental data observed during the rough
evaporation duct experiment, so the Ament model is
adopted in the following.
An equivalent Ament model[14] has been extended
to the oil-covered sea surface, and it can be expressed
as
𝑟Aeq = 𝑟12 (𝜃𝑖 ) exp(−2𝑅𝑎,1
2
)
2
+ 𝑡12 (𝜃𝑖 )𝑡21 (𝜃𝑚 )𝐵 exp(−2𝑅𝑎,2 )
[︁ 𝑟12 (𝜃𝑖 )𝐵 ]︁
· 1− 2 2
,
1 + 𝑟12 (𝜃𝑖 )𝐵 exp[−2(𝑅𝑎,𝑟2 + 𝑅𝑎,𝑟3 )]
(9)
where 𝐵 = 𝑟23 (𝜃𝑚 )𝑒−𝑗𝜑pl ; 𝑅𝑎,1 and 𝑅𝑎,2 are the
first-order Rayleigh parameter and the second-order
(7) Rayleigh parameter, 𝑅𝑎,𝑟2 and 𝑅𝑎,𝑟3 are the character-
istic parameters of the interface, 𝑟12 (𝜃𝑖 ) and 𝑟23 (𝜃𝑚 )
are the Fresnel reflection coefficient of the upper air-oil
and lower oil-sea interface, 𝑡12 (𝜃𝑖 ) and 𝑡21 (𝜃𝑚 ) are the
Fresnel transmission coefficient of the air-oil interface,
𝜑pl = 2𝑘2 𝐻 cos 𝜃𝑚 is the phase difference between the
first and second order reflected fields, with 𝑘2 being
the wavenumber inside the oil film and 𝐻 being the
mean thickness of the oil film, and 𝜃𝑚 is related to the
𝜃𝑖 by the Snell law. For more details one can refer to
Ref. [14].
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 CHIN. PHYS. LETT. Vol. 29, No. 7 (2012) 074210

To examine the impact of an oil-covered sea sur-
face on the electromagnetic wave propagation: con-
sidering that the atmospheric duct is an ubiquitous
phenomenon, due to the abnormal atmospheric con-
dition in marine environment, the propagation loss
of electromagnetic wave propagation over the oil-
covered sea surface is evaluated by the parabolic equa-
tion model,[15−18] which has been developed and ap-
plied extensively to calculate the electromagnetic wave
propagation problems due to its accuracy and stabil-
ity. More importantly we can conveniently take the
influence of atmospheric refractive condition into ac-
count. It should be pointed out that this work mainly
distance for the oil-covered sea surface. These can be
attributed to the fact that the oil film makes the oil-
covered sea surface smoother than that of the oil-free
sea surface. Moreover, a slight difference can be ob-
served from the propagation loss over the oil-covered
sea surface with different parameters. It is necessarily
explained that the same parameters as those stated
in Fig. 1 are employed and the fully oil-covered sea
surface is considered in a subsequent section, unless
specifically stated.
110
Oil-free sea surface (5 m/s)
Oil-covered sea surface (5 m/s)
120 Oil-free sea surface (8 m/s)

Propagation loss (dB)

puts an emphasis on the effects of the oil-covered sea Oil-covered sea surface (8 m/s)
Oil-free sea surface (12 m/s)
surface on the electromagnetic wave propagation, an Oil-covered sea surface (12 m/s)
exhaustive procedure for the parabolic equation and 130
atmospheric duct theory can be found in literature.
According to the atmospheric duct theory, the criti- 140
cal angle is defined as the maximum angle that the
electromagnetic wave can be trapped. It is usually 150
less than 0.8∘ .[19] That is to say, the incidence angle is
greater than 89.2∘ . This indicates that only the first 160
0 20 40 60 80 100
term of Eq. (9) mainly contributes to the equivalent Distance (km)
Ament model with 𝑟Aeq . In addition, we only discuss Fig. 2. The propagation loss over the oil-free and oil-
the insoluble oil-film case. It means that a minus sign covered sea surfaces with different wind speeds.
appears in Eq. (4).
100
120 Oil-free sea surface ( =5 GHz)
Oil-covered sea surface ( =5 GHz)
Oil-free sea surface 110 Oil-free sea surface ( =7 GHz)
Propagation loss (dB)

Oil-covered sea surface

125 Oil-covered sea surface ( =7 GHz)
Propagation loss (dB)

9 mN/m, =6 rad/s Oil-free sea surface ( =9 GHz)

Oil-covered sea surface 120 Oil-covered sea surface ( =9 GHz)
130 25 mN/m, D=11 rad/s

135
140
145
150
0 20 40 60
Distance (km)
Fig. 1. The propagation loss over the oil-free and oil-
covered sea surface.
Figure 1 shows the comparison of the propagation
loss over the oil-free and oil-covered sea surfaces for
the evaporation duct. The frequency is 10 GHz, the
evaporation duct height is 25 m, the antenna is located
at an altitude of 10 m, the receiver is located at an al-
titude of 15 m, the wind speed is 10 m/s, the complex
dielectric constant of sea water is (72.45, 57.27), the
parameters for the oil film floating on the sea surface
are 𝐸0 = 25 mN/m, 𝜔D = 11 rad/s and 𝐸0 = 9 mN/m,
𝜔D = 6 rad/s, respectively, and the Gaussian antenna
is adopted in this work due to its good directivity. It is
clearly seen that all the curves of the propagation loss
increase with the propagation distance, and the prop-
agation loss attenuates slowly with the propagation
130
140
150
160
0 20 40 60 80 100
80 100 Distance (km)
Fig. 3. The propagation loss over the oil-free and oil-
covered sea surfaces with different frequencies.
To explore the influence of wind speed on propaga-
tion loss over the oil-free and oil-covered sea surfaces,
the propagation losses for the oil-free and oil-covered
sea surfaces at different wind speeds are illustrated
in Fig. 2. The parameters for the oil film floating on
the sea surface are 𝐸0 = 25 mN/m, 𝜔D = 11 rad/s.
It is obviously seen that the difference between the
propagation losses for the oil-free and oil-covered sea
surfaces at a wind speed of 12 m/s increases constantly
with the propagation distance for a fixed distance.
However, a tiny difference can be observed at a wind
speed of 5 m/s. As we all know, the sea surface rough-
ness increases with wind speed, in other words, the
sea surface at a wind speed of 12 m/s is much rougher
than that at a wind speed of 5 m/s. This situation
074210-3
 CHIN. PHYS. LETT. Vol. 29, No. 7 (2012) 074210
shows that the oil film has a remarkable effect on the
large sea surface roughness (12 m/s) compared with
the small roughness case (5 m/s).
Figure 3 gives the comparison of the propaga-
tion loss over the oil-free and oil-covered sea surfaces
with different frequencies. The parameters for the oil
film floating on the sea surface are 𝐸0 = 25 mN/m,
𝜔D = 11 rad/s. One can observe that there are dis-
tinct differences between the propagation loss over the
oil-free and oil-covered sea surfaces, and the propaga-
tion loss over the oil-covered sea surface is less than
that of the oil-free sea surface owing to the existence
of oil film, which makes the oil-covered sea surface
smoother than oil-free one. However, the dependence
of the difference between the oil-free and oil-covered
sea surfaces on frequency are inexplicit. This may be
caused by the fact that the nonlinear relation between
the frequency and damping attenuation coefficient is
exhibited in Eq. (4).
120
125
Propagation loss (dB)
130
135
140
145
150
155
160
0 20 40 60 80
Distance (km)
Fig. 4. The propagation loss over the non-fully oil-covered
sea surface.
To further investigate the electromagnetic wave
propagation over the non-fully oil-covered sea surface,
the propagation loss with different fractional filling
factors are presented in Fig. 4. The numerical sim-
ulations are conducted at a wind speed of 12 m/s
and parameters for the oil film are 𝐸0 = 25 mN/m,
𝜔D = 11 rad/s. As is illustrated in Fig. 4, it is readily
seen that the smaller the fractional filling factor, the
greater the propagation loss at a specified distance,
which is a reasonable conclusion based on the electro-
magnetic scattering theory for the sea surface. Fur-
thermore, this phenomenon is mainly ascribed to the
fact that the smaller the fractional filling factor, the
rougher the sea surface. As 𝐹 = 0, it is implied that
𝑦𝑃 = 1 in Eq. (7), and the corresponding oil-covered
sea surface model in Eq. (3) reduces to an oil-free sea
surface model.
In summary, the electromagnetic wave propaga-
tion over an oil-covered sea surface in an evaporation
duct environment has been studied in comparison with
those of the oil-free sea surface. Firstly, the relation
between the wind speed and the rms height of an
oil-covered sea surface is refreshed based on the oil-
covered sea surface spectrum. Then, the electromag-
netic wave propagation over an oil-covered sea sur-
face in an evaporation duct environment with differ-
ent wind speeds and frequencies is discussed by the
parabolic equation for fully oil-covered sea surface. In
addition, the influence of the fractional filling factor
on the non-fully oil-covered sea surface is also inves-
tigated. The calculations indicate that the oil film
floating on the sea surface can not only reduce the sea
surface roughness but also can strengthen the over-
horizon effect of the electromagnetic signal under ab-
normal atmospheric conditions. It should be noted
that experimental verification and the influence of the
thickness of the oil film on the electromagnetic wave
propagation will be considered in future work.
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