Extinction, refraction, and delay in the atmosphere

Abstract

This paper establishes that absolute optical air mass and hydrostatic atmospheric delay of electromagnetic waves are proportional magnitudes, and, consequently, their respective obliquity ratios are identical dimensionless quantities. This means that a potential source for developing new models for relative optical air mass can be found in the formulae for the atmospheric delay in electromagnetic signals (and vice versa). In this respect, for estimating relative optical air mass, we demonstrate that Herring's (1992) family of mapping functions for modeling atmospheric delay is more accurate than functional forms devised expressly for the purpose, such as that of Kasten (1965).