Comparison of discrete ordinate and Monte Carlo simulations of polarized radiative transfer in two coupled slabs with different refractive indices.

A comparison is presented of two different methods for polarized radiative transfer in coupled media consisting of two adjacent slabs with different refractive indices, each slab being a stratified medium with no change in optical properties except in the direction of stratification. One of the methods is based on solving the integro-differential radiative transfer equation for the two coupled slabs using the discrete ordinate approximation. The other method is based on probabilistic and statistical concepts and simulates the propagation of polarized light using the Monte Carlo approach.

Impact of particulate oceanic composition on the radiance and polarization of underwater and backscattered light.

We use a Monte Carlo model to investigate how the particulate oceanic composition affects the radiance, the linear polarization, and the circular polarization of underwater and backscattered light. The Mueller matrices used in our simulations were computed using the T-matrix method. They are significantly different for organic and inorganic particles.

Monte Carlo and discrete-ordinate simulations of irradiances in the coupled atmosphere-ocean system.

We compare Monte Carlo (MC) and discrete-ordinate radiative-transfer (DISORT) simulations of irradiances in a one-dimensional coupled atmosphere-ocean (CAO) system consisting of horizontal plane-parallel layers. The two models have precisely the same physical basis, including coupling between the atmosphere and the ocean, and we use precisely the same atmospheric and oceanic input parameters for both codes. For a plane atmosphere-ocean interface we find agreement between irradiances obtained with the two codes to within 1%, both in the atmosphere and the ocean.