Exploring the evolution of the aerosol phase function away from spherical particles using scattering patterns from single atmospheric aerosol particles

Abstract:

Particle shape plays an important role in interpreting light scattering signals such as the atmospheric aerosol phase function. Light scattering from spheres is known to differ significantly from other particles shapes. In this work, we explore how the scattering phase function from aerosol particles evolve with particle sphericity. The analysis is performed on scattering patterns captured from individual atmospheric aerosol particles. The sphericity of single aerosol particles is quantified using autocorrelation analysis of the forward and backward scattering hemispheres. Preliminary results suggest that the scattering phase function quickly devolves from a shape consistent with spherical particles to a shape consistent with non-spherical particles. This supports the current remote sensing practice of characterizing atmospheric aerosol particles as a composition of spherical and non-spherical particles with less concern about the diversity of morphology within non-spherical particles. In addition, we found the backward scattering hemisphere was more sensitive to particle shape and thus a better indicator of the general shape of the phase function.