Atmospheric Scattering

• In addition to being absorbed or transmitted, electromagnetic

radiation can also be scattered by particles in the atmosphere 
• Scattering is the redirection of electromagnetic energy by
suspended particles in the atmosphere
• Scattering of electromagnetic radiation is caused by the
interaction of radiation with matter resulting in the re-
radiation of part of the energy to other directions not
along the path of the incident radiation.
• Scattering effectively removes energy from the incident
beam.
• Unlike absorption, this energy is not lost, but is
redistributed to other directions.
• The type and amount of scattering that occurs depends on
the size of the particles and the wavelength of the energy
 Scattering depends on
• the number of particles present in the
atmosphere
• the size of the particles
• the wave length of incoming radiation
• the depth of atmosphere that the radiation
must travel through.
EM radiation from the sun interacts with the atmospheric
constituents and gets absorbed or scattered. Essentially two
types of scattering takes place:

• Elastic scattering in which the energy of radiation is not

changed due to the scattering
• Inelastic scattering in which the energy of the scattered
radiation is changed.
Classification of Scattering:

Selective scattering
 Rayleigh Scattering
 Mie Scattering
 Raman Scattering
 Non-Selective Scattering
 Selective Scattering
• Varies with wavelength of the radiation
incident on the scattering particles.
 Rayleigh Scattering

• Rayleigh scattering is named after the British

physicist Lord Rayleigh.
• Rayleigh scattering occurs when the size of the
particle responsible for the scattering event is much
smaller than the wavelength of the incident light.
•For Rayleigh scattering, >>
Scattering = 1/ 4
• Wave length dependent, favoring short wavelengths,
and is responsible for our sky appearing blue.
• Rayleigh scattering causes shorter wavelengths of
energy to be scattered much more than longer
wavelengths.
• Rayleigh scattering is the dominant scattering
mechanism in the upper atmosphere.
• Because of Rayleigh scattering multispectral remote
sensing data from the blue portion of the spectrum is
of relatively limited usefulness
• In case of aerial photography, special filters are used
to filter out the scattered blue radiation due to haze
present in the atmosphere.
 Effect of Rayleigh Scattering

• Sunrays travel the shortest

distance through the atmosphere
in daytime causing a clear sky to
appear blue.
• At sunrise and sunset, sunrays
travel a longer distance through
earth atmosphere before they reach the surface. The shorter
wavelengths being scattered after some distance, only longer
wavelengths reach the earth surface and thus sky appears
orange or red.
 Mie scattering

• Diameter of particles = wavelength of EMR (Dust,

smoke and water vapor)
• Dust, smoke and water vapour are common causes of
Mie scattering which tends to affect longer
wavelengths than those affected by Rayleigh
scattering.
• Mie scattering occurs mostly in the lower portions of
the atmosphere where larger particles are more
abundant, and dominates when cloud conditions are
overcast.
 Raman Scattering
• Discovered by physicist C.V. Raman
• An inelastic scattering
• Frequency of light changes.
• Change in Kinetic energy of incident photon
during interaction with atmospheric particles.
• The atmospheric particles might be gaseous
molecules, water droplets, fumes or dust.
 Nonselective scattering
• Diameter of particles >> wavelength of EMR
• Caused by water droplets and large dust
particles
• Independent of wavelength, all wavelengths
scattered equally
• Most prominent example: effect of clouds, all
wavelengths being scattered equally, cloud
appears white.
Effects of Scattering in RS image
• Objects do not get illuminated properly.
• Intensity of remotely sensed object will be less.
• Produces blurring of the targets in remotely
sensed images due to spreading of reflected
radiation by scattering, resulting in reduced
resolution in image.
• Difficulty in extracting information from the
image.
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