Abstract

The research described here was motivated by a desire to develop a verifiable method for calculating the IR backscatter from measurements of typical atmospheric aerosols size distributions. The aerosol data base and general procedure employed is similar to that of a previous study which focused on optical properties in the visible region of the spectrum (Rosen and Hofmann, 1986). In that effort direct measurements of the extinction, backscatter and mass were compared to values calculated from the measured size distribution. The atmospheric particles under consideration were restricted to the stratospheric aerosol layer because they are spherical and of known composition, thus lending themselves to quantitative calculations. Results obtained in this earlier work indicate that measured size distributions could, in fact, be used with confidence to calculate physical and optical properties (in the visible) of the aerosol. In what follows is an attempt to extend this same study into the IR using available backscatter measurements at 10.6 μm. Again the majority of the effort will focus on the stratospheric aerosol layer, not because it is of inherent interest, but because it represents an ideal test target and aerosol system for quantitative calculations.

© 1987 Optical Society of America