Impact of particulate oceanic composition on the radiance and polarization of underwater and backscattered light

We use a Monte Carlo model to investigate how the particulate oceanic composition affects the radiance, the linear polarization, and the circular polarization of underwater and backscattered light. The Mueller matrices used in our simulations were computed using the T-matrix method. They are significantly different for organic and inorganic particles. Our Monte Carlo simulations show that these differences have a significant impact on the underwater and backscattered light, and that it may be possible to determine the ratio between the amounts of organic and inorganic particles from measurements of the full Stokes vector.