Airborne lidar remote sensing of vertical distribution of sea water scattering coefficient

It has been theoretically shown that vertical distribution of sea water scattering coefficient b(z) can be derived from temporal dependence of backscattered pulse polarization degree when sounding sea water by linear polarized light pulses. Experimental examination of the theoretical method has been carried out by using airborne lidar receiving two orthogonal polarized components of backscattered pulse. Measurements of the lidar signals are accompanied by shipboard measurements of the vertical distribution of the sea water attenuation coefficient c(z). Obtained data show that the backscattered pulse depolarization degree is small and doesn't exceed 6 - 8% at the time interval until 150 ns. The comparison of theoretical calculations and experimental results concerning depolarization degree allow us to evaluate the important parameter of sea water Mueller matrix- `depolarization factor' describing the difference between the first and second diagonal elements of the scattering matrix.