European validation of SAGE-2 aerosol profiles
Abstract
A SAGE-2 validation program was performed using ground based lidars and balloon-borne polarimetric and photographic experiments. Between the tropopause height and 23 km, good agreement is found between the SAGE-2 1.02 micron extinction profiles and the lidar profiles, using for the conversion of backscattering into extinction an aerosol model consistent with the SAGE-2 spectral extinction. The extinction profiles deduced from the limb photographs at 0.44 and 0.375 microns present a good agreement with the SAGE-2 profiles respectively at 0.453 and 0.385 microns. The size distribution retrieved from the near infrared polarimetric observations leads to a spectral variation of the extinction in good agreement with SAGE-2 data, in the same altitude range. Above 23 to 25 km, observations are scarce and the data of poorer quality because of the low aerosol content. The 1.02 micron extinction profiles seem to agree with the ruby lidar and the limb photographs profiles. But any conclusion concerning the short wavelength profiles and the size distribution at this high altitudes is risky.
- Publication:
-
Unknown
- Pub Date:
- 1988
- Bibcode:
- 1988evsa.book.....A
- Keywords:
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- Aerosols;
- Atmospheric Attenuation;
- Atmospheric Sounding;
- Ozone;
- Sage Satellite;
- Balloon Sounding;
- Optical Radar;
- Photographic Measurement;
- Polarimetry;
- Satellite Sounding;
- Geophysics