Polarization Patterns of Cloudy Skies and Animal Orientation

  • Gábor Horváth
  • Dezső Varjú
Chapter

Abstract

The polarization of light originating from an area of the sky covered by clouds (termed “cloudlight”) consists of two components:
  1. 1.

    The first originates from the cloud itself. White light illuminating the cloud remains white, but becomes partially linearly polarized after scattering on the cloud particles (ice crystals or water droplets).

     
  2. 2.

    The second component is caused by the scattering of light within the air column between the cloud and the observer. This column scatters bluish and partially linearly polarized light.

     

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004

Authors and Affiliations

  • Gábor Horváth
    • 1
  • Dezső Varjú
    • 2
  1. 1.Department of Biological PhysicsEötvös UniversityBudapestHungary
  2. 2.Lehrstuhl Kognitive NeurowissenschaftenUniversität TübingenTübingenGermany

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