Accuracy assessments of aerosol optical properties retrieved from Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) Sun and sky radiance measurements
Abstract. Sensitivity studies are conducted regarding aerosol optical property retrieval from radiances measured by ground based Sun sky scanning radiometers of the AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET). These studies focus on testing a new inversion concept for simultaneously retrieving aerosol size di...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.386.237 http://modis-atmos.gsfc.nasa.gov/_docs/Dubovik et al. (2000).pdf |
| Summary: | Abstract. Sensitivity studies are conducted regarding aerosol optical property retrieval from radiances measured by ground based Sun sky scanning radiometers of the AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET). These studies focus on testing a new inversion concept for simultaneously retrieving aerosol size distribution, complex refractive index, and single scattering albedo from spectral measurements of direct and diffuse radiation. The perturbations of the inversion resulting from random errors, instrumental offsets, and known uncertainties in the atmospheric radiation model are analyzed. Sun or sky channel miscalibration, inaccurate azimuth angle pointing during sky radiance measurements, and inaccuracy in accounting for surface 1 reflectance are considered as error sources. The effects of these errors on the characterization of three typical and optically distinct aerosols with bi-modal size distributions (weakly absorbing water-soluble aerosol, absorbing biomass burning aerosol, and desert dust) are considered. The aerosol particles are assumed in the retrieval to be polydispersed homogeneous spheres with the same complex refractive index. Therefore, we also examined how inversions with such an assumption bias the |
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