REASSESSING THE ELLIPTIC PHASE FUNCTION FOR USE IN 2-STREAM APPROXIMATIONS

In an important paper written over 25 years ago, solar radiative fluxe s based on exact Mie phase functions were compared to fluxes for corre sponding elliptic and Henyey-Greenstein scattering phase functions. Th e poor performance of the elliptic function can be attributed to the m ethod used to define its parameter. In this paper, a method is given t hat yields more appropriate elliptic phase functions. This greatly imp roves the credibility of the elliptic phase function as a potential ca ndidate for use in two-stream approximations. This is especially true for aerosol conditions where it appears to be more suitable than the H enyey-Greenstein phase function.