A study of ocean-like surface thermal emission and reflection using Voronovich's small slope approximation

Monte Carlo simulations are used to compute average direct surface thermal emission and reflected atmospheric radiation using the "active" small slope approximation of Voronovich. The surfaces considered are realizations of an ocean-like spectrum and contain features ranging from 64 to 0.5 electromagnetic wavelengths. The parallel computing approach of the study is described, and results are compared with predictions from the commonly applied "two-scale" theory of sea emission. Results show a reasonable level of agreement in a small height surface case, which degrades as the surface height is increased.