The mirror reflection of sunlight by the sea surface forms flares. However, conventional detection imaging is prone to be saturated due to their high light intensity, which seriously affects the detection of sea-surface targets. Depending on the polarization characteristics of sea surface flares and the integral characteristics of a time-delay-integration complementary metal oxide semiconductor (TDI-CMOS) in the digital domain, this paper designs and constructs an adaptive polarization detection system for sea-surface targets. With the help of this system, the polarization characteristics of sea-surface targets can be obtained by imaging them with a polarization camera in real time. The system guides the TDI-CMOS camera in the digital domain to suppress flares in time and space domains. In this paper, an experimental platform is built for water surface observation, and relevant validation experiments are carried out for typical targets. The experimental results show that the detection system can effectively suppress the influence of solar flares on images. Compared with ordinary images, the obtained flare suppression images have a significantly enhanced signal-to-clutter ratio, which effectively improves the artifacts caused by moving targets on images and greatly facilitates the detection of sea-surface targets.