Benchmark results in vector atmospheric radiative transfer

Abstract

In this paper seven vector radiative transfer codes are inter-compared for the case of underlying black surface. They include three techniques based on the discrete ordinate method (DOM), two Monte-Carlo methods, the successive orders scattering method, and a modified doubling-adding technique. It was found that all codes give very similar results. Therefore, we were able to produce benchmark results for the Stokes parameters both for reflected and transmitted light in the cases of molecular, aerosol and cloudy multiply scattering media. It was assumed that the single scattering albedo is equal to one. Benchmark results have been provided by several studies before, including Coulson et al. [22], Garcia and Siewert [7], [8], Wauben and Hovenier [10], and Natraj et al. [11] among others. However, the case of the elongated phase functions such as for a cloud and with a high angular resolution is presented here for the first time. Also in difference with other studies, we make inter-comparisons using several codes for the same input dataset, which enables us to quantify the corresponding errors more accurately.