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Kahn, R.A. Martonchik, J.V., Diner, D.J., Gaitley, B.J., Kalashnikova, O., Li, W., Team, T., (2004). Aerosol Properties From Multi-angle Satellite Imaging. Eos Trans. AGU, 85(47), Fall Meet. Suppl. 2004, Abstract # A53D-03


The MISR Aerosol Product is reaching maturity, the result of a multi-faceted validation effort. The MISR product provides, in addition to aerosol optical depth (AOT), information about particle size, shape, and single-scattering albedo (SSA). Particle micro-physical property retrievals are much more difficult to validate than AOT; there are significant uncertainties in aerosol size, and especially shape and SSA, as obtained from surface-based sun photometers, whereas instrumented aircraft must fly complex patterns to adequately sample all the aerosol layers in the entire column seen simultaneously by MISR. In addition to AOT, size, and SSA constraints from numerous AERONET surface monitoring sites, the MISR particle property validation effort relies on coincident satellite and field observations made as part of the PRIDE, SAFARI-2000, ACE-Asia, CLAMS, CRYSTAL-FACE, and INTEX-NA campaigns. We developed a technique for creating environmental snapshots from multiple, near-simultaneous in situ and surface measurements, which amount to full-column optical models of the ocean surface and atmosphere viewed by the satellite. The implementation sheds light on the complementary nature of satellite and in situ aerosol observations, and provides validation events for a range of clean, dusty, polluted, maritime and continental cases. In addition to showing statistical summaries of MISR-AERONET inter-comparisons, we will present examples where we bring together detailed field observations, offering stronger, quantitative constraints on the satellite aerosol retrievals. This work is performed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.


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Updated: 14-Jan-2005