Data Fusion Approach for Estimating Global Aerosol Radiative Forcing

Among the climate forcing agents, aerosols have been long identified as important modulators of the Earth's energy budget. Several studies based on both observations and modeling have demonstrated their climatic impacts both regionally and globally. But these estimates still remain highly uncertain due to inhomogeneity in their spatial and temporal distributions. Continuous monitoring of the both aerosols and climate variables can help reduce these uncertainties. Observations from multiple satellite sensors that offer global coverage can be used to study the Earth-atmosphere in an integrated fashion. By fusing satellite data, we can utilize the strengths of the individual sensors that may not be otherwise possible. In this study we merge level 2 observations from 3 satellite sensors, the CERES, MODIS and MISR onboard Terra satellite to estimate the top of atmosphere (TOA) shortwave aerosol radiative forcing (SWARF) over global land. Evaluation of fusion of MISR observations within CERES footprint against ground-based AERONET observations will be presented. Regional estimate of SWARF from biomass burning over S. America and dust aerosols over UAE region will also be presented. This study demonstrates the successful application of using merged multi-sensor data in forcing estimation.