Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of chemical symbols
- List of mathematical symbols
- List of abbreviations and acronyms
- 1 Background
- 2 Ocean surface phenomena
- 3 Electromagnetic radiation
- 4 Atmospheric properties and radiative transfer
- 5 Reflection, transmission and absorption at the atmosphere/ocean interface
- 6 Ocean color
- 7 Infrared observations of sea surface temperature (SST)
- 8 Introduction to microwave imagers
- 9 Passive microwave observations of the atmosphere and ocean surface
- 10 Introduction to radars
- 11 Scatterometers
- 12 The altimeter
- 13 Imaging radars
- 14 Other instruments: the gravity missions, ICESat-1 and -2, CryoSat-2, SMOS and Aquarius/SAC-D
- Appendix
- References
- Index
- Plate Section
5 - Reflection, transmission and absorption at the atmosphere/ocean interface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of chemical symbols
- List of mathematical symbols
- List of abbreviations and acronyms
- 1 Background
- 2 Ocean surface phenomena
- 3 Electromagnetic radiation
- 4 Atmospheric properties and radiative transfer
- 5 Reflection, transmission and absorption at the atmosphere/ocean interface
- 6 Ocean color
- 7 Infrared observations of sea surface temperature (SST)
- 8 Introduction to microwave imagers
- 9 Passive microwave observations of the atmosphere and ocean surface
- 10 Introduction to radars
- 11 Scatterometers
- 12 The altimeter
- 13 Imaging radars
- 14 Other instruments: the gravity missions, ICESat-1 and -2, CryoSat-2, SMOS and Aquarius/SAC-D
- Appendix
- References
- Index
- Plate Section
Summary
Introduction
This chapter and the next address the case of solar reflectivity from the ocean interior. For clear water, the present chapter addresses reflection and transmission at the interface, then defines the terminology used to describe the backscatter of the transmitted radiation from the ocean interior. It also describes the attenuation of an irradiance propagating downward in the interior. Using this terminology, Chapter 6 addresses how the properties of the backscatter change when the water contains biological and other organic and inorganic constituents. Both in the present chapter and in Chapter 6, the focus is on the water-leaving radiance, which is the radiance from the interior that crosses the ocean/air interface, where this radiance is related to that received at aircraft and satellite sensors.
At all wavelengths, the properties of the radiance received at a satellite depend on the small-scale interaction of the radiation with the air/water interface. In the infrared, however, the ocean is so highly absorbing that absorption and emission are confined to the top 1–100 µm of the ocean, and in the microwave, they are confined to the top few mm. For these bands and neglecting the atmosphere, the properties of the received radiance depend only on scattering and reflection at the ocean surface. Because in water, radiances propagate to depths of order 100 m only in the visible and near-ultraviolet, for the visible, the received radiances also depend on the backscatter of solar radiation in the ocean interior.
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- An Introduction to Ocean Remote Sensing , pp. 113 - 135Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014