Optical sizing of irregular snow grains

Abstract

We discuss a possibility of snow grain size determination using spectral reflectance measurements in the near-infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Errors related to often made assumption of the sphericity of grains are studied. Also we introduce a new method for the snow albedo and snow pollution monitoring using measurements in the visible part of the electromagnetic theory. Both exact and approximate methods of the radiative transfer are used for the solution of corresponding inverse problem. It is assumed that snow grains can be presented as randomly distributed irregular fractal particles. The developed techniques are applied to both ground and satellite data.