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.