Open AccessLight transfer at the ocean surface modeled using high resolution sea surface realizations
Author(s) -
Susan Kay,
John D. Hedley,
Samantha Lavender,
Alex Nimmo-Smith
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.19.006493
Subject(s) - optics , pixel , monte carlo method , surface (topology) , image resolution , ray tracing (physics) , reflection (computer programming) , remote sensing , atmospheric optics , physics , geology , geometry , computer science , mathematics , statistics , programming language
The behavior of light at the air-sea interface has been investigated using ray tracing methods with numerically realized surfaces that incorporate features on scales from 3 millimeters to 200 meters. The directional reflection of light at the surface realizations was tested using Monte Carlo code. Estimated directionally reflected radiances were generally in good agreement with those from existing methods that model the slope statistics but not the shape of the sea surface. However, significant differences were found for some incident and exitant directions. The model was used to quantitatively estimate the pixel-to-pixel variation in ocean color images caused by spatial variation in the sea surface shape.