Satellite Aerosol Remote Sensing Over Land

The book opens with a description of aerosol retrievals from satellite radiometers and then looks at the 12-year record of global aerosol properties from Along-track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR-2) and Advanced Along-track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR). The dual view of the latter allows for the accurate retrieval of aerosol properties over land and algorithms have been developed using these two views to eliminate the influence of the land surface reflectance on the top of the atmosphere radiation. The third chapter shows how the algorithm uses the AATSR IR and visible wavebands for cloud detection and the visible and NIR wavebands for aerosol retrieval and the consequent determination of the aerosol optical depth at various wavelengths and the dominant aerosol types. The results are then compared with independent data: sun photometers and, when available, aerosol composition.