Reassessing the Elliptic Phase Function for Use in Two-Stream Approximations

Abstract

In an important paper written over 25 years ago, solar radiative fluxes based on exact Mie phase functions were compared to fluxes for corresponding elliptic and Henyey?Greenstein scattering phase functions. The poor performance of the elliptic function can be attributed to the method used to define its parameter. In this paper, a method is given that yields more appropriate elliptic phase functions. This greatly improves the credibility of the elliptic phase function as a potential candidate for use in two-stream approximations. This is especially true for aerosol conditions where it appears to be more suitable than the Henyey-Greenstein phase function.