Microwaves through an ice sphere: Which scattering solution is best?

[DarkLightA]

I apologize for not following the template, but it doesn't really fit. I would have posted it elsewhere but as it's for academic purposes I think it has to be here. Please excuse me if I'm wrong.

I'm a high schooler working on a project, and I was planning to send ≈3 cm microwaves through an ice sphere with diameter varying from about 1-6 cm and see the change in scattering.

Unfortunately, through the research I've done it seems like this is way more complicated than I'd imagined.

So, I need some help.

Wikipedia (Most reliable source... Well...) states:

Major forms of elastic light scattering (involving negligible energy transfer) are Rayleigh scattering and Mie scattering. Inelastic scattering includes Brillouin scattering, Raman scattering, inelastic X-ray scattering and Compton scattering.

And this confuses me. I know ice absorbs some EM waves, and thus it must be somewhat inelastic. However, I'm not sure whether that's what is meant.

Can someone help me with which I should use, and why?

 

[mfb]

The wavelength is so long, effects from the whole material should be more relevant than those inelastic scattering processes. I would expect significant absorption.

I think classical physics was the right subforum ;).

 

[DarkLightA]

Huh, okay. Does this mean I can use something like the Mie Theory to predict scattering, or not?