A new look at the discrete ordinate method for radiative transfer calculations in anisotropically scattering atmospheres.

The difficulties inherent in the conventional numerical implementation of the discrete ordinate method (following Chandrasekhar's prescription) for solving the radiative transfer equation are discussed. A matrix formulation is developed to overcome these difficulties, and it is specifically shown that the order of the algebraic eigenvalue problem can be reduced by a factor of 2. -from Authors