Forward electromagnetic scattering models for sea ice

Recent advances in forward modeling of the electromagnetic scattering properties of sea ice are presented. In particular, the principal results include the following: (1) approximate calculations of electromagnetic scattering from multilayer random media with rough interfaces, based on the distorted Born approximation and radiative transfer (RT) theory; (2) comprehensive theory of the effective complex permittivity of sea ice based on rigorous bounds in the quasi-static case and strong fluctuation theory in the weakly scattering regime; (3) rigorous analysis of the Helmholtz equation and its solutions for idealized sea ice models, which has led in the one dimensional (1D) case to nonlinear generalizations of classical theorems in Fourier analysis. The forward models considered incorporate many detailed features of the sea ice system and compare well with experimental data. The results have advanced the general theory of scattering of electromagnetic waves from complex media as well as homogenization theory, which relates bulk properties of composite media to their microstructural characteristics. Furthermore, the results have direct application to microwave remote sensing and serve as the basis for inverse algorithms for reconstructing the physical properties of sea ice from scattering data