The absorption and scattering of underwater light by water are the two main factors influencing image degradation. With a focus on underwater target imaging, this paper proposes an underwater target polarization recovery method by global parameter estimation, using a simplified underwater target polarization reconstruction model, which recovers an underwater target image by automatically estimating global optimal polarization information reconstruction parameters to reduce the impact of the medium on image quality. First, a polarization median filter method and the bright primary principle method were used to estimate the underwater background light polarization degree information and the infinite underwater background light intensity values, respectively. Based on the principle of minimum mutual information, the background light polarization degree information was optimized and estimated. Then, adopting the underwater target polarization image enhancement algorithms to enhance the details of the underwater reconstruction target, a clear figure of the underwater targets radiation information was produced. The experimental results show that the value of the measure of enhancement (EME) in the suggested method increased by 120% on average, compared with the original strength of the figure and that of other underwater recovery methods for the calculation of the performance evaluation index. Further, the image quality was significantly improved. The method has solved the inaccuracy problem while estimating parameters via artificial view and improved the contrast of the restored target image. The method can be used to detect and identify turbid underwater targets.