Monte Carlo simulation of laser backscatter from sea water

A Monte Carlo simulation study of laser backscatter from sea water has been carried out to provide data required to assess the feasibility of measuring inherent optical propagation properties of sea water from an aircraft. The possibility was examined of deriving such information from the backscatter component of the return signals measured by the WRELADS laser airborne depth sounder system. Computations were made for various water turbidity conditions and for different fields of view of the WRELADS receiver. Using a simple model fitted to the computed backscatter data, it was shown that values of the scattering data absorption coefficients can be derived from the initial amplitude and the decay rate of the backscatter envelope.