Comparison of the ray-tracing and beam-tracing methods in the problem of light scattering by ice crystals of cirrus clouds

摘要

Comparison of two approaches within the framework of geometric optics, called the ray-tracing and beam-tracing methods, is considered in application to the problem of light scattering by ice crystal particles of cirrus clouds. A good conformity between the numerical data obtained by these algorithms is demonstrated. The computer time spent for the calculations by these algorithms is analyzed depending on spatial orientations of the particles. It is shown that the beam-tracing methods exceeds its counterpart at small number of reflection/refraction events (up to 5) while the situation becomes opposite if this number is larger than 5.