Rough ocean surface and sunglint region characteristics.

The sunglint geometrical optics equations of a statistically faceted sea, supported by the so-called interaction probability density and employing an averaging hybrid of the Cox-Munk and Mermelstein slope statistics, was successful in simulating 0.5 microm sunglint region characteristics. The results match independent experimental data, and good agreement is reported for various sea conditions and Sun locations, on sunglint amplitude, sunglint location, and azimuth range. In particular, the peak reflectance shift from the specular direction toward the horizon is correctly predicted, and it is found that the physical mechanism responsible for the shift is the accumulation of contributing facets near the horizon.