Enhanced Aerosol Characterisation from Synergy of Active and Passive Remote Sensing Observations Using GRASP Algorithm
Abstract
Currently, most of experiments pursuing comprehensive characterization of atmosphere include coordinated observations by both lidar and radiometers in order to obtain important complimentary information about aerosol properties. The passive observations by radiometers from ground are mostly sensitive to the properties of aerosol in total atmospheric column and have very limited sensitivity to vertical structure of the atmosphere. Such observations are commonly used for measuring aerosol optical thickness and deriving the information about aerosol microphysics including aerosol particles shape, size distribution, and complex refractive index (Dubovik et al., 2000). In a contrast, lidar observations of atmospheric responses from different altitudes to laser pulses emitted from ground are designed to provide accurate profiling of the atmospheric characteristics. The interpretation of the lidar observation generally relies on some assumptions about aerosol type and loading. Here we present the GRASP algorithm (Generalized Aerosol Retrieval of Atmospheric and Surface Properties) (Dubovik et al., 2014) that simultaneously inverts co-incident lidar and radiometer observations and derives a united set of aerosol parameters. Such synergetic retrieval results in additional enhancements in derived aerosol properties (Lopatin et al., 2013) because the backscattering observations by lidar including elastic, Raman and depolarization add some sensitivity to the columnar properties of aerosol, while radiometric observations provide sufficient constraints on aerosol type and loading that generally are missing in lidar signals.
As GRASP algorithm realizes a very general and unified approach to the remote sensing observations treatment (Dubovik et al., 2011), a deep synergies between ground based or space borne instruments, both active and passive, could be achieved, providing improved data necessary for deeper understanding of global distribution of aerosol properties. For example, the potential of synergy processing of space borne lidar and polarimeter) will be discussed with preliminary results for POLDER/CALIPSO joint retrieval.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFM.A31G2922L
- Keywords:
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- 0305 Aerosols and particles;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTUREDE: 0319 Cloud optics;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTUREDE: 0321 Cloud/radiation interaction;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTUREDE: 0360 Radiation: transmission and scattering;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE