A Radiative Transfer Model for Soil Media with Considering the Volume Effects of Soil Particles: Field Observation and Numerical Simulation

Abstract

his paper presents the development of an improved soil radiative transfer model (RTM) which considering the volume scattering effect of soil particles, an unexplored part of traditional RTMs, through field experiments and numerical simulations. The field observations were conducted by using the Ground Based Passive Microwave Radiometer (GBMR) to measure the brightness temperature of dry sand layer over background materials, metal plates or absorbers. The existence of volume scattering effects in the dry sand was demonstrated through field experiments. Then, the observed data were simulated by the dense media radiative transfer (DMRT) model. The simulation results show that the DMRT model which includes the volume scattering effects performers better than the generally used surface emission model which does not include volume scattering effects.