Study the polarization and depolarization properties of atmospheric aerosol multiple scattering based on the successive order of scattering

Abstract

With the polynomial fitting of source function in each order of scattering calculation and the effective process of aerosol forward scattering peak, a polarized radiative transfer (RT) model based on the improved successive order of scattering (SOS) method has been developed to solve the vector radiative transfer equation. By our RT model, not only the total Stokes parameters [I, Q, U] measured by the satellite (aircraft) and ground-based sensors with linear polarization could be approximately simulated, but also the results of parameters for each scattering order event could conveniently calculated, which are very helpful to study the polarization properties for the atmospheric aerosol multiple scattering. In this study, the synchronous measured aerosol results including aerosol optical depth, complex refractive index and particle size distribution from AERONET under different air conditions, are considered as the input parameters for the successive scattering simulations. With our polarized RT model and the Mie code combined, the Stokes parameters as well as the degree of polarization for each scattering order are simulated and presented; meanwhile, the polarization (depolarization) properties of multiply scattering are preliminary analyzed and compared with different air quality (clear and pollution). Those results could provide a significant support for the further research of polarized aerosol remote sensing and inversion. Polarization properties of aerosol, successive order of scattering, vector radiative transfer equation, polynomial fitting of source function , multiply scattering