POLARIZATION OF SUNLIGHT REFLECTED FROM THE SEA SURFACE
Abstract
The observation of purple-blue solar glitter points when viewing the sea surface through polarizing glasses can be explained on the following basis. Reflection of sunlight at angles of incidence close to the Brewster angle for the long and medium wavelengths of the visible light spectrum produces a reflected beam with a component wave vibrating in the plane of incidence and deficient in red, green, and yellow light. Since this component of the reflected beam is the only one transmitted by polarizing glasses, the glitter points appear to be of a purple-blue color. Other colorimetric properties of the parallel polarized reflected light beam predicted by this explanation are consistent with the observations. The explanation may be used to obtain extreme values of sea surface slope at the time of the observation, and the extreme values obtained are consistent with previous estimates of extreme sea surface slopes. It is suggested that the type of observations described might be useful in the measurement of sea surface slope distributions over small areas. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 1962
- Accession Number
- AD0276738
Entities
People
- Joseph Pandolfo
Organizations
- New York University