Emission from a Rayleigh layer with irregular boundaries

A theory of microwave emission from an irregular layer of Rayleigh scatterers is developed by combining an existing matrix doubling method for volume scattering with the Kirchhoff method in surface scattering. Effects of the layer boundaries are illustrated by comparing layers with plane boundaries vs layers with rough top or bottom boundaries and irregular layers. It is found that the major effect of an irregular top layer boundary is to slow down the variation of the layer emission as a function of the nadir angle and the major effect of an irregular bottom boundary is to increase the level of the layer emission. Comparisons of the developed layer model with snow emission indicate the potential use of such models in data interpretation.