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AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Index Terms

  • Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Cloud optics
  • Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Cloud physics and chemistry
  • Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Radiation: transmission and scattering

Abstract

GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 33, L14820, 4 PP., 2006
doi:10.1029/2006GL026312

Radiative transfer in clouds with small-scale inhomogeneities: Microphysical approach

Michael I. Mishchenko

NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, New York, USA

Several recent publications have indicated that cloud droplets belonging to a particular size range may tend to cluster by forming small random particle groups imbedded in an otherwise uniform cloud. To analyze radiative transfer in clouds with such small-scale inhomogeneities, we invoke the concepts of statistical electromagnetics. We show that as long as the assumptions of ergodicity and spatial uniformity hold, one can still apply the classical radiative transfer equation in which the participating extinction and phase matrices are obtained by averaging the respective single-particle matrices over all the particles constituting the cloud. This result implies that comparisons of in situ and remote-sensing retrievals of the cloud-particle size distribution can be problematic and should be performed with caution.

Received 15 March 2005; accepted 1 May 2006; published 29 July 2006.

Citation: Mishchenko, M. I. (2006), Radiative transfer in clouds with small-scale inhomogeneities: Microphysical approach, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L14820, doi:10.1029/2006GL026312.

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