Retrieval of Aerosol information from UV measurement by using optimal estimation method

Abstract:

An algorithm to retrieve aerosol optical depth (AOD), single scattering albedo (SSA), and aerosol loading height is developed for GEMS (Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer) measurement. The GEMS is planned to be launched in geostationary orbit in 2018, and employs hyper-spectral imaging with 0.6 nm resolution to observe solar backscatter radiation in the UV and Visible range. In the UV range, the low surface contribution to the backscattered radiation and strong interaction between aerosol absorption and molecular scattering can be advantageous in retrieving aerosol information such as AOD and SSA [Torres et al., 2007; Torres et al., 2013; Ahn et al., 2014]. However, the large contribution of atmospheric scattering results in the increase of the sensitivity of the backward radiance to aerosol loading height. Thus, the assumption of aerosol loading height becomes important issue to obtain accurate result. Accordingly, this study focused on the simultaneous retrieval of aerosol loading height with AOD and SSA by utilizing the optimal estimation method. For the RTM simulation, the aerosol optical properties were analyzed from AERONET inversion data (level 2.0) at 46 AERONET sites over ASIA. Also, 2-channel inversion method is applied to estimate a priori value of the aerosol information to solve the Lavenberg Marquardt equation.

The GEMS aerosol algorithm is tested with OMI level-1B dataset, a provisional data for GEMS measurement, and the result is compared with OMI standard aerosol product and AERONET values. The retrieved AOD and SSA show reasonable distribution compared with OMI products, and are well correlated with the value measured from AERONET. However, retrieval uncertainty in aerosol loading height is relatively larger than other results.