Abstract

Our perception of the landscape depends on the product of the spectral irradiance of the sun, the transmission and scattering of the earth's atmosphere, and the spectral sensitivity of our eyes. Although this last factor, the human eye, is reasonably matched through evolution to the available energy (400-700 nm), appreciable information is unavailable to us in the infrared (λ 700-1000 nm) and in the near ultra violet (λ 320-400 nm). While the infrared landscape has received much attention, hardly anything is known about the ultraviolet. The UV is of special interest in meteorological optics because water is perfectly transparent at these wavelengths and because all refractive phenomena are enhanced at short wavelengths. Here is a new domain worthy of exploration.

© 1983 Optical Society of America