Lidar Remote Sensing of Seawater Optical Properties: Experiment and Monte Carlo Simulation

摘要

Detecting the vertical profile of optical properties is an important task in the remote sensing of the upper ocean, especially for 3-D reconstruction. Ocean color remote sensing can only provide surface information, while the light detection and ranging (lidar) technique can provide depth-resolved data. Lidar can provide global-scale observations of the upper ocean for days and nights with minimal atmospheric correction errors. Unfortunately, due to the strong multiple scattering effects that occur when light propagates in seawater, the simple lidar equation may cause some deviations between the actual measurements and the simulation of the lidar signals. In this paper, we present a shipborne oceanic lidar, which was developed to detect the optical properties of seawater. For evaluating the performance of the lidar system, a Monte Carlo (MC) model was established to simulate lidar signals based on the simultaneous