A method and algorithm of computing apparent optical properties of coastal sea waters

A new approach is proposed for the calculation of irradiances, diffuse attenuation coefficients and diffuse reflectances in waters with arbitrary scattering and absorption coefficients, arbitrary conditions of illumination and a bottom with Lambertian albedo. The two-stream approach adopted utilizes experimental dependencies of mean cosines from inherent optical properties in order to achieve appropriate accuracy. This approach can be successfully used for calculation of apparent optical properties in both open and coastal oceanic waters, lakes and rivers.