light scattering properties of fixed oriented cuboid sea salt particles

Abstract The light scattering properties of sea salt aerosol particles are essential to understand the terrestrial system and its evolution. In this study, the fixed oriented cuboid sea salt particle model is established. And the effect of aspect ratios and spatial orientations on the scattering properties of sea salt particles are investigated by using discrete dipole approximation (DDA) method. Moreover, the results are compared with that of random orientation sphere, cubic and cylinder particle. The results show that, for the particles with discontinuity surface and fixed orientation, the scattering properties of sea salt particles are sensitive to spatial orientation and aspect ratios of the particles. The scattering characteristics of sea salt particles with different spatial orientation and aspect ratios are very different from the results of random oriented sphere, cubic, and cylinder particles, the relative difference of scattering parameters for fixed and random particles can be more than several times. Compared with the random orientation rectangular particles and the equivalent cylinder particles, the scattering phase matrix parameters of rectangular particles with fixed orientation have more different features in the backscattering direction. The results indicate that for the fixed orientation non-spherical particles, the spatial orientation and aspect ratios have a great effect on the scattering properties of aerosol particles. The study maybe provides a comprehensive understanding of the scattering properties for sea salt aerosol in actual ocean atmosphere.