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A direct optical method for measuring the “instantaneous” profile of the sea surface with an accuracy of 1 mm and a spatial resolution of 3 mm is described. Surface profile measurements can be carried out on spatial scales from units of millimeters to units of meters with an averaging time of 10−4 s. The method is based on the synchronization of the beginning of scanning a laser beam over the sea surface and the beginning of recording the radiation scattered on the surface onto the video camera matrix. The heights of all points of the profile are brought to a single point in time, which makes it possible to obtain “instantaneous” profiles of the sea surface with the frequency of video recording. The measurement technique and data processing algorithm are described. The errors of the method are substantiated. The results of field measurements of the parameters of sea waves are presented: amplitude spectra, distribution of slopes at various spatial averaging scales. The applied version of the wave recorder did not allow recording capillary oscillations, but with some modernization it will be possible. The method is completely remote, does not distort the properties of the surface, is not affected by wind, waves and sea currents, it allows you to measure the proportion of foam on the surface. The possibility of applying the proposed method at any time of the day and in a wide range of weather conditions has been experimentally proved.

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The atmospheric advection of water vapor is one of the most important components of the planetary hydrological cycle. Radiosondes are a means for regular observations of water vapor fluxes. However, their data are sparse in space and time. A more complete picture is provided by reanalysis assimilating these data. However, a statistically representative check of the reanalysis estimates of the water vapor fluxes far from regularly operating weather stations is difficult. The previously proposed and developed method of satellite radiothermovision makes it possible to reconstruct the vertically integrated advective water vapor fluxes from satellite microwave radiometry. In this work, for the first time, the results of direct comparisons of long (5 year) time series of zonal vertically integrated daily water vapor fluxes based on the data of radiosondes, reanalysis, and satellite radiothermovision are performed and presented. It is shown that all the data series are statistically reliably correlated (at a confidence level of 0.995). The regression factor between the fluxes from reanalysis and satellite radiothermovision was close to 1, but with a noticeable bias (the latter were about 60 kg/(m·s) less on average). Grounds are given for the hypothesis that calculations based on satellite radiothermovision mainly characterize water vapor fluxes in the lower troposphere (up to heights of about 4 km). Its verification, as well as the analysis of the noted cases of violation of the correlation between the fluxes from satellite radiothermovision and reanalysis, requires further research.

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