Polarization Structure of Multiply Scattered Background Components of Lidar Signals Reflected from Cloud Ice Crystals

A numerical experiment is performed to obtain the polarization characteristics of signals of a monostatic lidar intended for homogeneous cloud sensing. It is assumed that clouds consist of monodisperse randomly-oriented hexagonal ice crystals. To solve the vector radiative transfer equation, the light scattering phase matrices, preliminary calculated with the help of the beam splitting technique, are used as input data. The formation of the polarization structure of multiply scattered background signal component is studied for different scattering orders depending on crystal shapes and sizes and optical and geometrical conditions of the experiment.