A Long-Term Record of Aerosol Optical Depth from TOMS Observations and Comparison to AERONET Measurements ...
Observations of backscattered near-ultraviolet radiation from the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) on board the Nimbus-7 (1979–92) and the Earth Probe (mid-1996 to present) satellites have been used to derive a long-term record of aerosol optical depth over oceans and continents. The retrieva...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | unknown |
| Published: |
AMS
2002
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.13016/m2jnnr-uhkz https://mdsoar.org/handle/11603/28595 |
| Summary: | Observations of backscattered near-ultraviolet radiation from the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) on board the Nimbus-7 (1979–92) and the Earth Probe (mid-1996 to present) satellites have been used to derive a long-term record of aerosol optical depth over oceans and continents. The retrieval technique applied to the TOMS data makes use of two unique advantages of near-UV remote sensing not available in the visible or near-IR: 1) low reflectivity of all land surface types (including the normally bright deserts in the visible), which makes possible aerosol retrieval over the continents; and 2) large sensitivity to aerosol types that absorb in the UV, allowing the clear separation of carbonaceous and mineral aerosols from purely scattering particles such as sulfate and sea salt aerosols. The near-UV method of aerosol characterization is validated by comparison with Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) ground-based observations. TOMS retrievals of aerosol optical depth over land areas (1996–2000) are shown ... |
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