A Fractal Geometric Model Of Light Pulse Propagation In A Multilayer Ocean

A method for modelling light pulse propagation through a multilayer ocean is presented which employs metric analysis using fractals. Fractal analysis is a novel method which, in this application, has the follcmin,g features: 1. nonlinear surface and volume scattering, absorption, reflection, and refraction can be described from empirical data, 2. the optical path length of multiple-collision scattering paths can be computed using the fractal dimension, yielding improved processing speed, and 3. radiative transfer between multiple layers can be described in terms of a convolutional method which is not computationally burdensome. Vertical and temporal scalar irradiance distributions are computed and compared with previously published results. The effect of multiple scattering on beamspread and temporal pulse distortion is discussed in terms of the fractal dimension and irradiance field profiles. Although the model can be quite complex, its computational load is shown to be low.