The propagation of light in the sea is of interest in many areas of oceanography: light provides the energy that powers primary productivity in the ocean; light diffusely reflected by the ocean provides the signal for the remote sensing of subsurface constituent concentrations (particularly phytoplankton pigments); light absorbed by the water heats the surface layer of the ocean; light absorbed by chemical species (particularly dissolved organics) provides energy for their dissociation; and the attenuation of light with depth in the water provides an estimate of the planktonic activity. Engineering applications include the design of underwater viewing systems. The propagation of light in the ocean-atmosphere system is governed by the integral-differential equation of radiative transfer, which contains absorption and scattering parameters that are characteristic of the particular water body under study. Unfortunately, it is yet to be shown that these parameters are measured with sufficient accuracy to enable an investigator to derive the in-water light field with the radiative transfer equation (RTE). Furthermore, the RTE has, thus far, defied analytical solution, forcing one to resort to numerical methods. These numerical solutions are referred to here as “simulations.” In this chapter, simulations of radiative transfer in the ocean-atmosphere system are used (1) to test the applicability of approximate solutions of the RTE, (2) to look for additional simplifications that are not evident in approximate models, and (3) to obtain approximate inverse solutions to the transfer equation, e.g., to derive the ocean’s scattering and absorption properties from observations of the light field. The chapter is based on a lecture presented at the Friday Harbor Laboratories of the University of Washington directed to both students and experts. For the students, I have tried to make the material as self-contained as possible by including the basics, i.e., by providing the basic definitions of the optical properties and radiometry for absorbing-scattering media, developing the approximate solutions to the RTE for testing the simulations, detailing the model used for scattering and absorbing properties of ocean constituents in the simulations, and briefly explaining the simulation method employed. For the experts, I hope I have provided some ideas worthy of experimental exploration.
Jayenne Physics Manual, Revision 1.0 - An Implicit Monte Carlo Code for Thermal Radiative Transfer
