A method of obtaining oceanographic and meteorological data from high frequency radar spectral information including the steps of transmitting a plurality of signals to a remote geographic location, recording signals backscattered from the said location, generating a family of Doppler clutter spectra from the recorded backscattered signal and analyzing the Doppler clutter spectra in terms of a model or models to generate oceanographic and meteorological data estimates. The Doppler spectra are categorized according to Suitability for Deatiled Analysis (SDA). The SDA takes account of the clutter-to-noise ratio in the spectrum, the amplitudes of the Bragg-lines, multimode propagation, spectral broadening and other spectral parameters. Spectra with a low SDA are inappropriate for extracting directional wave spectrum estimates of reasonable accuracy but are useful for obtaining wind direction estimates. Spectra with a high SDA are capable of being inverted to provide good quality estimates of the extended directional wave spectrum.
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