Paper
1 November 2012 Aerosol properties from multi-spectral and multi-angular aircraft 4STAR observations: expected advantages and challenges
Evgueni Kassianov, Connor Flynn, Jens Redemann, Beat Schmid, Philip B. Russell, Alexander Sinyuk
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
The airborne Spectrometer for Sky-Scanning, Sun-Tracking Atmospheric Research (4STAR) is developed to retrieve aerosol microphysical and optical properties from multi-angular and multi-spectral measurements of sky radiance and direct-beam sun transmittance. The necessarily compact design of the 4STAR may cause noticeable apparent enhancement of sky radiance at small scattering angles. We assess the sensitivity of expected 4STAR-based aerosol retrieval to such enhancement by applying the operational AERONET retrieval code and synthetic 4STAR-like data. Also, we assess the sensitivity of the broadband radiative fluxes and the direct aerosol radiative forcing to uncertainties in aerosol retrievals associated with the sky radiance enhancement. Our sensitivity study results suggest that the 4STARbased aerosol retrieval has limitations in obtaining detailed information on particle size distribution and scattering phase function. However, these limitations have small impact on the retrieved bulk optical parameters, such as the asymmetry factor (up to 4%, or ±0.02) and single-scattering albedo (up to 2%, or ±0.02), and the calculated direct aerosol radiative forcing (up to 6%, or 2 Wm-2).
© (2012) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Evgueni Kassianov, Connor Flynn, Jens Redemann, Beat Schmid, Philip B. Russell, and Alexander Sinyuk "Aerosol properties from multi-spectral and multi-angular aircraft 4STAR observations: expected advantages and challenges", Proc. SPIE 8534, Remote Sensing of Clouds and the Atmosphere XVII; and Lidar Technologies, Techniques, and Measurements for Atmospheric Remote Sensing VIII, 85340J (1 November 2012); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.974744
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KEYWORDS
Aerosols

Scattering

Light scattering

Atmospheric particles

Optical properties

Atmospheric optics

Sun

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