Re: [Phys-l] Humidity and visibility

[Bernard Cleyet <bernardcleyet@redshift.com>]

Water vapour is ~ 100% T in the vis.  It's water the scatters, the kind and amount depends on the size and purity


Well there are some absorption bands.  Here's some info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_absorption_by_water





And yes for water:

The Military IR HdBh is a gold mine for this info, but since I'm 80 miles from my library, here's some googlings:


http://www.d-a-instruments.com/light_absorption.html


Here's your very own Mie scatt. calculator:

http://omlc.ogi.edu/cgi-bin/mie_angles.cgi?diameter=1.0&lambda_vac=0.6328&n_medium=1.0&nr_sphere=1.5&ni_sphere=0&n_angles=100&density=0.1

This page includes Rayleigh scatt. as the small size limit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mie_theory


bc




On 2010, May 31, , at 16:17, curtis osterhoudt wrote:

> What is it that affects visibility ("haziness") more: relative or absolute humidity? Perhaps neither one, since it's (probably) Mie scattering, and that's dependent on much more than a single number. Thoughts?

cut