STUDY OF THE POLARIZATION CHARACTERISTICS OF SKYLIGHT OVER BEIJING

One of the significant characteristics of the sky is the polarization of light,which is formed through the multi-scattering process of atmospheric molecules,aerosols and earth's surface,and thus contains information on these three factors.It has recently been paid more attentions to retrieve the characteristic parameters of the aerosol and surface of the earth from the skylight polarization information.Observation of the skylight polarization over Beijing has been conducted with a multi-wavelength polarimeter developed by LAGEO(Laboratory for Middle Atmosphere and Global Environment Observation),IAP(Institute of Atmospheric Physics) since November 1995.With these observation data,both the seasonal variations of the maximum degree of polarization of the skylight and the effect of the surface situation are studied in this paper.A Monte Carlo code for the vector radiative transfer calculation is used to simulate and compare with observation.