Rayleigh scattering correction

1 Overview

The eotools.rayleigh module provides a generic look-up table (LUT) based Rayleigh correction method. The correction LUT, instead of being calculated for each sensor, relies on a generic “Rayleigh optical depth” dimension. The Rayleigh optical depth is calculated dynamically, for each pixel and each sensor band (characterized either by a spectral response function (SRF) or by a central wavelength), using the rod() function based on the analytical formula from (Bodhaine et al. 1999). Then, the Rayleigh LUT is interpolated pixel by pixel based on the observation geometry, wind speed, and Rayleigh optical depth.

The correction is implemented in the RayleighCorrection class.

2 LUT structure ("polymer_legacy")

The lookup table used by RayleighCorrection is "polymer_legacy", a LUT calculated with the SOS (successive order of scattering) code. It contains the following data variables:

Variable Dimensions Description
rho_r (mu_s, raa, mu_v, odr) Rayleigh reflectance (no glint, black surface)
rho_rg (mu_s, raa, mu_v, odr, wind_speed) Rayleigh reflectance with sun glint
t_d (mu_s, odr, wind_speed, mu_v) Total Rayleigh transmittance (downward × upward, direct + diffuse)

It has the following grid structure:

Dimension Size Min Max Description
odr 201 0.000 0.400 Rayleigh optical depth. odr=0.4 allows covering \(\lambda > 390nm\)
mu_s 25 0.032 1.000 Solar zenith cosine (0-88°)
mu_v 25 0.032 1.000 Viewing zenith cosine (0-88°)
raa 37 180° Relative azimuth angle (5° spacing)
wind_speed 5 0 m/s 16 m/s Horizontal wind speed (values: 0, 2, 4, 8, 16 m/s)

The RAA convention follows the standard definition: \(\text{raa} = \text{saa} - \text{vaa}\) (solar azimuth minus viewing azimuth).

3 Output variables

After Rayleigh correction, the following variables are added to the dataset:

Variable Description
rho_rc Rayleigh-corrected reflectance (depending on options: with or without glint correction, with or without Rayleigh transmittance correction)
rho_r Rayleigh reflectance (without glint)
rho_rg Rayleigh + sun glint reflectance
t_d Total atmospheric transmittance (downward × upward, direct + diffuse)
odr Rayleigh optical depth (computed intermediate)

References

Bodhaine, Barry A., Norman B. Wood, Ellsworth G. Dutton, and James R. Slusser. 1999. “On Rayleigh Optical Depth Calculations.” J. Atmos. Oceanic Technol. 16: 18541861. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0426(1999)016%3C1854:ORODC%3E2.0.CO;2.