Radiative transfer in cloud fields with random geometry

Abstract

Numerical results are given to estimate the importance of effects associated with the stochastic geometry of cloud fields. These results show the importance of treating radiative transfer in broken clouds as a statistical problem. In the case of the statistically homogeneous cloud fields, the mean fluxes and brightness fields depend weakly on the shape of cloud base. It is shown that mean fluxes and mean path lengths depend nonlinearly on cloud fraction. -Authors