Open AccessRelationship between the effective attenuation coefficient of spaceborne lidar signal and the IOPs of seawater
Author(s) -
Qun Liu,
Dong Liu,
Jian Bai,
YuPeng Zhang,
Yudi Zhou,
Peituo Xu,
Zhipeng Liu,
Sijie Chen,
Haochi Che,
Lan Wu,
Yibing Shen,
Chong Liu
Publication year - 2018
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.26.030278
Subject(s) - lidar , remote sensing , seawater , radiative transfer , attenuation , scattering , environmental science , attenuation coefficient , atmospheric radiative transfer codes , optics , exponential function , computational physics , physics , geology , mathematics , oceanography , mathematical analysis
Multiple scattering is an inevitable effect in spaceborne oceanic lidar because of the large footprint size and the high optical density of seawater. The effective attenuation coefficient klidar in the oceanic lidar equation, which indicates the influence of the multiple scattering effect on the formation of lidar returns, is an important parameter in the retrieval of inherent optical properties (IOPs) of seawater. In this paper, the relationships between klidar of the spaceborne lidar signal and the IOPs of seawater are investigated by solving the radiative transfer equation with an improved semianalytic Monte Carlo model. Apart from the geometric loss factors, klidar is found to decrease exponentially with the increase of depth in homogeneous waters. klidar is given as an exponential function of depth and IOPs of seawater. The mean percentage errors between klidar calculated by the exponential function and the simulated ones in three typical stratified waters are within 0.5%, proving the effectiveness and applicability of this klidar-IOPs function. The results in this paper can help researchers have a better understanding of the multiple scattering effect of spaceborne lidar and improve the retrieval accuracy of the IOPs and the chlorophyll concentration of case 1 water from spaceborne lidar measurements.