Electromagnetic model of thermal emission from foam-covered ocean surface using dense medium radiative transfer theory

The authors study polarimetric thermal emission from a foam layer over the ocean surface. The foam layer is modeled as an inhomogeneous volume consisting of densely distributed air bubbles with thin water shells. The brightness temperature is obtained by numerically solving the dense medium radiative transfer equation. The extinction coefficient and the phase functions associated with the scattering and absorption by the bubbles are computed using the quasi-crystalline approximation. Numerical results for various physical parameters are presented.