A new dual beam laser system was developed for systematic study of the influence of various aerosol parameters such as size, concentration and refractive index on the transmission of light through an aerosol under well-controlled laboratory conditions. The measuring technique is based on simultaneous observation of transmitted and scattered light fluxes in growing aerosol droplets. Multiple spattering effects were determined by concurrent use of two optical systems for the same model droplet cloud, of which one (the reference system) was negligibly affected by multiple scattering. Modeling of transmittance was performed using a solution of the radiative transfer equation in small angle approximation, as well as Monte Carlo simulations of beam propagation in turbid media. It was found that Monte Carlo results were in good agreement with the experimental data, whereas the small angle approximation considerably underestimated the multiple scattering contributions to the transmitted light for our experimental conditions.

Date Published: 1 August 1992
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 1688, Atmospheric Propagation and Remote Sensing, (1 August 1992); doi: 10.1117/12.137926

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 1688:
Atmospheric Propagation and Remote Sensing
Anton Kohnle; Walter B. Miller, Editor(s)