Light Scattering by Pure Water and Seawater: Recent Development

Light scattering by pure water and seawater is a fundamental optical property that plays a critical role in ocean optics and ocean color studies. We briefly review the theory of molecular scattering in liquid and electrolyte solutions and focus on the recent developments in modeling the effect of pressure, extending to extreme environments, and evaluating the effect of salinity on the depolarization ratio. We demonstrate how the modeling of seawater scattering can be applied to better understand spectral absorption and attenuation of pure water and seawater. We recommend future efforts should be directed at measuring the polarized components of scattering by pure water over a greater range of wavelengths, temperature, salinity, and pressure to constrain and validate the model and to improve our knowledge of the water’s depolarization ratio.