Imagine, if you will, that the entire oceans of the earth were as crystal clear as pure steam distlled water.
If this was true, then how far down would sunlight be able to penentrate to the sea floor? In addition: How far down could a person be submerged in a submarine and still see the sunlight from above?
This is nothing but a WAG, but I’d say not terribly far. After all, a really cloudy day can be very dark, and that’s just water vapor between you and the sun. My guess is the refractory capabilities of the water would scatter sunlight pretty effectively down to practically nothing right quick.
Not very far. Visible light is absorbed very rapidly even by pure by salt water. About half of all light is absorbed in the first metre, about 3/4 is absorbed within 10 metres and less than 1% reaches 100 metres. Pure water sans salt will increase the penetration a little, but not greatly. Probably something like 75% being absorbed within 15 metres and still less than 1% reaching 100 metres.
Serious question: do you have a reference for that? One of the most common misconceptions in astronomy is that the sky is blue because oceans reflect blue light. When I answer it I talk about how red light is more strongly absorbed than blue in water, but I don’t have any numbers. If you have a cite that would help a lot!
Well that was mostly from memory of Aquatic Biol classes about a decade ago, but a quick Google search turns up reams of sites dicussing light transmission in salt water, like Seawater Absorbs radiation (attenuation)
Transmits visible part of spectrum only
-ca. 60% absorbed in first meter
–80% by 10 m depth
-only 1% available light left at 150 m
-at about 250 m depth, intensity of illumination the same
looking up or down
Different wavelengths behave differently
-long wavelengths (“red” end) preferentially absorbed
-shorter wavelengths (“blue-green”) transmitted deeper
The scattering of light by clouds is caused by the presence of little droplets of liquid water (not vapor) with air in between them. The repeated refraction of rays of light at all the air/water interfaces is what causes scattering. Liquid that isn’t dispersed like that, and only has one interface with the air, won’t scatter light the same way.
I stand corrected.