Investigation of snow single scattering properties based on first order Legendre phase function

Abstract

Angularly resolved bidirectional reflectance measurements were modelled by approximating a first order Legendre expanded phase function to retrieve single scattering properties of snow. The measurements from 10 different snow types with known density and specific surface area (SSA) were investigated. A near infrared (NIR) spectrometer was used to measure reflected light above the snow surface over the hemisphere in the wavelength region of 900–1650nm. A solver based on discrete ordinate radiative transfer (DISORT) model was used to retrieve the estimated Legendre coefficients of the phase function and a correlation between the coefficients and physical properties of different snow types is investigated. Results of this study suggest that the first two coefficients of the first order Legendre phase function provide sufficient information about the physical properties of snow where the latter captures the anisotropic behaviour of snow and the former provides a relative estimate of the single scattering albedo of snow. The coefficients of the first order phase function were compared with the experimental data and observed that both the coefficients are in good agreement with the experimental data. These findings suggest that our approach can be applied as a qualitative tool to investigate physical properties of snow and also to classify different snow types.