The Application of Regional Aerosol Properties to AVHRR Aerosol Retrieval Algorithms
Timothy S. Bates, Principal Investigator
Patricia K. Quinn, Co-Investigator
Philip A. Durkee,Co-Investigator
Abstract:
Assessing the importance of the direct
and indirect effect of anthropogenic aerosols on the
radiative forcing of climate requires an
understanding of the global distribution of aerosol
properties and an estimate of what fraction of the
total aerosol is from anthropogenic sources.
Assembling a global climatology of these aerosol
properties will require a combination of in-situ
measurements covering a globally representative
range of natural and anthropogenically perturbed
environments, satellite observations and chemical
transport models. We propose to use our unique data
set of in-situ aerosol measurements, shipboard sun-
photometer measurements and high-resolution AVHRR
observations collected on five oceanographic
research cruises in the Pacific (RITS-93, RITS-94,
ACE-1, and CSP) and Atlantic (ACE-2) Oceans to:
1. develop a regional climatology of marine boundary
layer aerosol properties (number size
distribution, mass size distribution of
individual chemical species, and light
extinction) over the oceans,
2. use these regional aerosol properties to develop
regional AVHRR aerosol retrieval algorithms, and
3. test these regional aerosol retrievals against
simultaneous aerosol in-situ measurements,
shipboard optical depth measurements and AVHRR
overpasses during the five research cruises.
In addition, as part of the NASA Aerosol Climatology
Research Team, we will work with the other Team
members to exploit more fully our 10 years of
aerosol field data. Our data sets should
be particularly useful in testing chemical transport
models.
