A role of aerosol particles in forming urban skyglow and skyglow from distant cities

Aerosol particles may represent the largest uncertainty about skyglow change in many locations under clear-sky conditions. This is because aerosols are ubiquitous in the atmosphere and influence the ground-reaching radiation in different ways depending on their concentrations, origins, shapes, sizes, and compositions. Large particles tend to scatter in Fraunhofer diffraction regime, while small particles can be treated in terms of Rayleigh formalism. However, the role of particle microphysics in forming the skyglow still remains poorly quantified. We have shown in this paper that the chemistry is somehow important for backscattering from large particles that otherwise work as efficient attenuators of light pollution if composed of absorbing materials. The contribution of large particles to the urban skyglow diminishes as they become more spherical in shape. The intensity of backscattering from non-absorbing particles is more-or-less linearly decreasing function of particle radius even if number size distribution is inversely proportional to the fourth power of particle radius. This is due to single particle backscattering that generally increases steeply as the particle radius approaches large values. Forward scattering depends on the particle shape but is independent of the material composition, thus allowing for a simplistic analytical model of skyglow from distant cities. The model we have developed is based on mean value theorem for integrals and incorporates the parametrizable Garstang's emission pattern, intensity decay along optical beam path, and near-forward scattering in an atmospheric environment. Such model can be used by modellers and experimentalists for rapid estimation of skyglow from distant light sources.