Prediction of optical path deviations under stable conditions in maritime environments

Bulk Monin-Obhukov modeling of atmospheric profiles is extensively employed in conjunction with ray-tracing to account for refraction-induced ray-bending in sensor simulation studies. Last year, the accuracy of such methods was assessed on a large diversity of conditions by consolidating data obtained from two different measurement campaigns. Model predictions of path deviations were found to agree with measurements to within plus or minus 0.1 mrad in most cases, except for air-sea temperature differences greater than about 2 °C where much larger discrepancies were obtained. In this paper, bulk models of temperature and humidity profiles under stable conditions are discussed. Calculations using two modeling approaches found in the literature are compared against measurements, and suggestions are made for model improvement.