Abstract
Suspended particles attenuate and scatter light. Both the attenuation and the scattering is influenced by the particle’s size and optical constants of the material. The angular scattering and the wavelength dependent extinction provides a means of obtaining information on the size distribution of the particles. The relation between optical properties and size is given by integral equations which are not easy to solve, since no unique solution exists.
It is possible to predict the accuracy of any inversion procedure through mathematical operations. The information parameter is close to one if the inverted size distribution data have little ambiguity and goes to zero if the inverted size distribution is meaningless. For spectral extinction measurements (in the visible) the range of meaningful size distributions obtained through inversions is between particle radii of 0.1 to 1 µm. For inversion of angular scattering data, the range is between 0.05 and 1.5 µm if scattering angles between 20 and 160° are used. The upper size limit increases if the scattering is also measured at smaller angles.
Simultaneous measurements of the horizontal attenuation, the sky radiation and the size distribution of the aerosol with an impactor has shown that inversions give meaningful results within the range, where the information parameter is high. The usual features of the atmospheric aerosol are also detected by the inversion of the angular scattering obtained from sky radiation measurements.
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Horvath, H. et al. (2002). Size Distributions of Particles Obtained by Inversion of Spectral Extinction and Scattering Measurements. In: Videen, G., Kocifaj, M. (eds) Optics of Cosmic Dust. NATO Science Series, vol 79. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0628-6_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0628-6_9
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