  We study the phenomenon of super-roughening found on surfaces growing on
disordered substrates. We consider a one-dimensional version of the problem for
which the pure, ordered model exhibits a roughening phase transition. Extensive
numerical simulations combined with analytical approximations indicate that
super-roughening is a regime of asymptotically flat surfaces with non-trivial,
rough short-scale features arising from the competition between surface tension
and disorder. Based on this evidence and on previous simulations of the
two-dimensional Random sine-Gordon model [Sanchez et al., Phys. Rev. E 62, 3219
(2000)], we argue that this scenario is general and explains equally well the
hitherto poorly understood two-dimensional case.
