Sensitivity study on the contribution of scattering by randomly oriented nonspherical hydrosols to linear...

The influence of hydrosol nonsphericity on the polarization characteristics of light under water is investigated by combining accurate single-scattering models for randomly oriented spheroidal scatterers with a radiative transfer model that employs Stokes formalism and considers refraction of direct unpolarized solar radiation and 100% linearly polarized radiation at the air-water interface followed by single scattering. Variations in what we call the "linear polarization phase function" (the degree of linear polarization as a function of scattering angle and the angle of linear polarization as a function of scattering angle) are examined for a wide range of spheroid aspect ratios and complex refractive indices of hydrosols. Implications for polarization-sensitive marine organisms and for remote sensing of the marine environment are discussed.