Can image quality through the atmosphere be predicted in advance?

Using atmospheric modulation transfer function area (MTFA) as a single-valued numerical criterion for image quality propagated through the atmosphere, a statistical study of atmospheric imaging data has led to the determination of regression coefficients with which to quantitatively predict effects of windspeed, air temperature, and relative humidity on image quality propagated through the atmosphere as a function of wavelength over the 400-1000 nm wavelength region. Utilization of this procedure is quite simple. One simply plugs in expected values for windspeed, air temperature, and relative humidity in the regression coefficient expression for mcfa. The larger the expected mcfa, the better the expected image quality. Data for desert atmospheres have been presented previously. Here, the model for non-desert atmospheres is presented. Preliminary experimentation indicates the accuracy of the present model is quite good.