An Iterative Radiative Transfer Code For Ocean-Atmosphere Systems

Abstract

We describe the details of an iterative radiative transfer code for computing the intensity and degree of polarization of diffuse radiation in models of the ocean-atmosphere system. The present code neglects the upwelling radiation from below the ocean surface and as such is applicable to the part of the spectrum where the absorption by water is strong. TO establish the reliability of our numerical scheme as well as the computer code, we compare our results with those of Fraser and Walker (1968), Dave (1972) and Mullamaa (1964) and find them to be in excellent agreement. We also obtained reasonably good qualitative agreement with Plass et al. (1975) who utilize the Monte Carlo technique to solve the radiative transfer equation for the ocean-atmosphere system. Our computations also show that both the intensity as well as the degree of polarization of the upwelling diffuse radiation at the top of the atmosphere vary significantly, when the rough ocean at the base of the atmosphere is replaced by a Lambertian surface that reflects the same energy as the rough Ocean.