Revised depolarization corrections for atmospheric extinction

Abstract

Possible sources of errors in depolarization data are analyzed with special reference to the rotational Raman contribution to the optical depth. It is shown that the depolarization data now available are so accurate that their uncertainty affects the calculated Rayleigh optical depth by less than 1%, and consequently, the anomalously low extinctions occasionally reported must be due to systematic errors of measurement rather than errors in the Rayleigh optical depths.