DIRECT SOLUTION OF THE SPHERICAL HARMONICS APPROXIMATION TO THE RADIATIVE TRANSFER EQUATION FOR AN ARBITRARY SOLAR ELEVATION - 2. RESULTS.

Abstract

It is shown that the method based on a direct numerical solution of the spherical harmonics approximation to the radiative transfer equation can be used for obtaining smooth scattered-intensity vs angle-of-observation curves for any arbitrary position of the sun. Results presented for models of moderate (about 10) optical thickness and with Rayleigh, haze, as well as non-precipitating cloud phase functions show that intensity values of a given accuracy can be obtained with moderate computing resources.