Propagation of an infrared radiation beam in a polydisperse aqueous aerosol stream

A new approach is developed to analyze bleaching of the atmospheric cloud cover by optical radiation using a moment description of the properties of a polydisperse aerosol. The convergence of the optical parameters and the depth of bleaching of the aqueous aerosol are investigated in terms of the order of the moments of the particle distribution function. An analysis is made of the influence of the microphysical characteristics of the aerosol, the parameters of the medium and the optical beam, and also the nonlinear refraction effect on the formation of a transparency channel under conditions of quasi-cw and pulsed irradiation. It is shown that the water content approximation results in appreciable errors in the determination of the bleaching depth and induced refraction in the beam channel.