McCART: Monte Carlo Code for Atmospheric Radiative Transfer

McCART is a numerical procedure to solve the radiative transfer equation for light propagation through the atmosphere from visible to near-infrared wavelengths. The procedure has been developed to study the effect of the atmosphere in the remote sensing of the Earth, using aerospace imaging spectrom...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on geoscience and remote sensing 2008-06, Vol.46 (6), p.1740-1752
Main Authors: Nardino, V., Martelli, F., Bruscaglioni, P., Zaccanti, G., Del Bianco, S., Guzzi, D., Marcoionni, P., Pippi, I.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aerosols
Algorithms
Applied geophysics
Atmosphere
Atmospheres
atmospheric propagation
Atmospheric waves
Computer simulation
Earth
Earth sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Equations
Exact sciences and technology
Grounds
Hyperspectral imaging
Internal geophysics
Light scattering
Monte Carlo methods
multilayered media
Particle scattering
Radiation
Reflectance
Reflectivity
remote sensing
scattering
Spectroscopy
Studies
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Description
Summary:McCART is a numerical procedure to solve the radiative transfer equation for light propagation through the atmosphere from visible to near-infrared wavelengths. The procedure has been developed to study the effect of the atmosphere in the remote sensing of the Earth, using aerospace imaging spectrometers. The simulation is run for a reference layered plane nonabsorbing atmosphere and a plane ground with uniform reflectance. For a given distribution of ground reflectance and for a specific profile of scattering and absorption properties of the atmosphere, the spectral response of the sensor is obtained in a short time from the results of the Monte Carlo simulation by using scaling relationships and symmetry properties. The procedure also includes an accurate analysis of the adjacency and trapping effects due to multiple scattering of photons coming from neighboring pixels. McCART can generate synthetic images of the Earth's surface for arbitrary viewing conditions. The results can be used to establish the limits of applicability of approximate algorithms for the processing and analysis of hyperspectral images acquired by imaging spectrometers. In addition, the algorithm can be used to develop procedures for atmospheric correction for the accurate retrieval of the spectral ground reflectance.
ISSN:0196-2892
1558-0644
DOI:10.1109/TGRS.2008.916464