AUTHOR=Kokhanovsky Alexander , Brell Maximilian , Segl Karl , Efremenko Dmitry , Petkov Boyan , Bianchini Giovanni , Stone Robert , Chabrillat Sabine TITLE=The two-layered radiative transfer model for snow reflectance and its application to remote sensing of the Antarctic snow surface from space JOURNAL=Frontiers in Environmental Science VOLUME=12 YEAR=2024 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/environmental-science/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2024.1416597 DOI=10.3389/fenvs.2024.1416597 ISSN=2296-665X ABSTRACT=

The two-LAyered snow Radiative Transfer (LART) model has been proposed for snow remote sensing applications. It is based on analytical approximations of the radiative transfer theory. The geometrical optics approximation has been used to derive the local snow optical parameters, such as the probability of photon absorption by ice grains and the average cosine of single light scattering in a given direction in a snowpack. The application of the model to the selected area in Antarctica has shown that the technique is capable of retrieving the snow grain size both in the upper and lower snow layers, with grains larger in the lower snow layer as one might expect due to the metamorphism processes. Such a conclusion is confirmed by ground measurements of the vertical snow grain size variability in Antarctica.