Lattice Boltzmann method for one-dimensional vector radiative transfer

A one-dimensional vector radiative transfer (VRT) model based on lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) that considers polarization using four Stokes parameters is developed. The angular space is discretized by the discrete-ordinates approach, and the spatial discretization is conducted by LBM. LBM has such attractive properties as simple calculation procedure, straightforward and efficient handing of boundary conditions, and capability of stable and accurate simulation. To validate the performance of LBM for vector radiative transfer, four various test problems are examined. The first case investigates the non-scattering thermal-emitting atmosphere with no external collimated solar. For the other three cases, the external collimated solar and three different scattering types are considered. Particularly, the LBM is extended to solve VRT in the atmospheric aerosol system where the scattering function contains singularities and the hemisphere space distributions for the Stokes vector are presented and discussed. The accuracy and computational efficiency of this algorithm are discussed. Numerical results show that the LBM is accurate, flexible and effective to solve one-dimensional polarized radiative transfer problems.