A review of volume scatter theories for modeling applications

Volume scatter theories commonly applied to develop scatter models for vegetation, snow, and sea ice are reviewed. These include (1) the first‐order theories based on the Born approximation, the distorted Born approximation, and the renormalization method and (2) the multiple scatter theories based on the radiative transfer method and the matrix doubling method. Applications of the scatter models developed from a first‐order theory and a multiple scatter theory are illustrated. Additional applications available in the literature are cited.