A new polarized atmospheric radiative transfer model

Abstract

A plane-parallel polarized radiative transfer model is described. The model is used to compute the radiance exiting a vertically inhomogeneous atmosphere containing randomly-oriented particles. Both solar and thermal sources of radiation are considered. A direct method of incorporating the polarized scattering information is combined with the doubling and adding method to produce a relatively simple formulation. Several numerical results are presented for verification and comparison.