Scattering Theory & Simulation

Single scattering by a particle is the most fundamental process of the radiative energy transfer in the surface-atmosphere coupled system. The theory of light-scattering was established by Rayleigh (1870) known as the Rayleigh scattering by atmospheric molecules whose size is much smaller than the incident solar radiation. Later, Gustav Mie established the Lorenz-Mie theory (Mie, 1908) to solve the problem of light scattering by a spherical particle for any sizes, which laid the foundation of atmospheric remote sensing and radiative transfer theory to date. However, as you may know, atmospheric particles often exhibit nonspherical particle shapes, such as mineral dust aerosol, volcanic ash, and ice crystals.

This figure, adapted from Saito and Yang (2019) and Saito et al. (2021), illustrates phase functions of atmospheric nonspherical particles such as (left panels) oriented ice crystals and (right panels) mineral dust aerosols. We use the state-of-the-art light scattering computational capabilities to develop the databases of these large nonspherical particles. The aforementioned computational capabilities assure, for the first time, reliable backscattering properties of these large nonspherical particles. For more information, please check the webpage for the TAMUoic2019 and TAMUdust2020 databases.

Modeling of scattering properties of nonspherical atmospheric particles

The single-scattering properties of atmospheric particles are fundamental to radiative transfer and remote sensing applications. If the assumed atmospheric particle optical property model is wrong, the error eventually propagates to downstream applications. Therefore, the single-scattering property model must be accurate and relevant. Although the analytical solution of the single-scattering properties of a sphere, known as the Lorenz–Mie theory, was derived more than a hundred years ago, unfortunately, it does not apply to most atmospheric particles such as ice crystals and coarse-mode aerosols because these particles are nonspherical. Light scattering computational capabilities for nonspherical particles have been developed in recent decades. We use state-of-the-art light scattering computational capabilities to simulate the scattering properties of ice crystals and aerosol particles based on realistic particle shape and morphology assumptions.

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