International Polarized Radiative Transfer

In this case we include the US standard atmosphere, the corresponding Rayleigh scattering optical thickness and molecular absorption profiles are provided at 450 nm. In addition two aerosol layers are added: desert dust in the troposphere and sulfate in the stratosphere.

Setup:

• model atmosphere US-standard, scattering optical thickness provided in file tau_rayleigh_450nm_usstd.dat, molecular absorption optical thicknes in tau_absorption_450nm_usstd.dat. The file includes 2 columns where the first is the altitude of the layer boundaries in km, and the second is the layer optical thickness (e.g. the value for 0 km corresponds to the optical thickness for the layer from 0 to 1 km).
• desert dust aerosol between 0 and 3 km altitude with an optical thickness of 0.5. The aerosol optical properties are given in the file desert.cdf. The format of the file is the same as in case D4.
• sulfate aerosol between 20 and 21 km altitude with an optical thickness of 0.05 with optical properties from sulfate.cdf.
• wavelength: 450 nm
• Rayleigh depolarization factor: 0.03
• surface albedo: 0
• Earth radius: 6371 km

• Sun-observer geometries as defined in general settings:
  • viewing zenith angles (deg): [0, 9, 18, 26, 34, 41, 48, 54, 60, 65, 70, 74, 78, 81, 84, 86, 88, 89, 90] (up-looking at bottom of atmosphere, down-looking at top of atmosphere]
  • viewing azimuth angles (deg): 0-180, 10° increment
  • solar zenith angles (deg): [30, 60, 80, 87, 90, 93, 96, 99]
  • solar azimuth angle (deg): 0
  • sensor altitude (km): 0, 120