Polarized infrared reflectivity of one-dimensional Gaussian sea surfaces with surface reflections

Sea surface infrared reflectivity is an important parameter in maritime remote sensing. Usually, single reflection by the sea surface is considered. However, a loss of energy is then reported for large zenith observation angles (theta > 50 degrees) with a peak of about 4% for theta approximate to 80 degrees, because of the neglect of the multiple surface reflections. This paper presents calculations for the polarized infrared reflectivity of one-dimensional sea surfaces (2D problems) with two surface reflections, by introducing a bistatic illumination function with two reflections. The results show good agreement with the ones obtained by a Monte Carlo ray-tracing method. It is also shown that the energy conservation criterion is better satisfied after considering two surface reflections. (C) 2013 Optical Society of America