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Retrieving Aerosol Characteristics From the PACE Mission, Part 2: Multi-Angle and PolarimetryThe Plankton, Aerosol, Clouds, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission presents new opportunities and new challenges in applying observations of two complementary multi-angle polarimeters for the space-based retrieval of global aerosol properties.Aerosol remote sensing from multi-angle radiometric-only observations enables aerosol characterization to a greater degree than single-view radiometers, as demonstrated by nearly two decades of heritage instruments. Adding polarimetry to the multi-angle observations allows for the retrieval of aerosol optical depth, Angstrom exponent,parameters of size distribution, measures of aerosol absorption, complex refractive index and degree of non-sphericity of the particles, as demonstrated by two independent retrieval algorithms applied to the heritage POLarization and Directionality of the Earth's Reflectance (POLDER) instrument. The reason why this detailed particle characterization is possible is because a multi-angle polarimeter measurement contains twice the number of Degrees of Freedom of Signal (DFS) compared to an observation from a single-view radiometer. The challenges of making use of this information content involve separating surface signal from atmospheric signal, especially when the surface is optically complex and especially in the ultraviolet portion of the spectrum where we show the necessity of polarization in making that separation. The path forward is likely to involve joint retrievalsthat will simultaneously retrieve aerosol and surface properties, although advances will berequired in radiative transfer modeling and in representing optically complex constituents in those models. Another challenge is in having the processing capability that can keep pace with the output of these instruments in an operational environment. Yet, preliminaryalgorithms applied to airborne multi-angle polarimeter observations offer encouraging results that demonstrate the advantages of these instruments to retrieve aerosol layer height, particle single scattering albedo, size distribution and spectral optical depth, and also show the necessity of polarization measurements, not just multi-angle radiometricmeasurements, to achieve these results.
Document ID
20190029599
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
External Source(s)
doi:10.3389/fenvs.2019.00094
Authors
Remer, Lorraine A. (Maryland Univ. Baltimore County (UMBC) Baltimore, MD, United States)
Knobelspiesse, Kirk (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Zhai, Peng-Wang (Maryland Univ. Baltimore County (UMBC) Baltimore, MD, United States)
Xu, Feng (Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology (CalTech) Pasadena, CA, United States)
Kalashnikova, Olga V. (Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology (CalTech) Pasadena, CA, United States)
Chowdhary, Jacek (Columbia Univ. New York, NY, United States)
Hasekamp, Otto (SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research Utrecht, Netherlands)
Dubovik, Oleg (Université de Lille Villeneuve d'Asoq, France)
Wu, Lianghai (SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research Utrecht, Netherlands)
Ahmad, Ziauddin (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Boss, Emmanuel (Maine Univ. Orono, ME, United States)
Cairns, Brian (NASA Goddard Inst. for Space Studies New York, NY, United States)
Coddington, Odele (Colorado Univ. Boulder, CO, United States)
Davis, Anthony B. (Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology (CalTech) Pasadena, CA, United States)
Dierssen, Heidi M. (Connecticut Univ. Groton, CT, United States)
Diner, David J. (Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology (CalTech) Pasadena, CA, United States)
Franz, Bryan (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Frouin, Robert (Scripps Institution of Oceanography La Jolla, CA, United States)
Gao, Bo-Cai (Naval Research Lab. Washington, DC, United States)
Ibrahim, Amir (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Levy, Robert C. (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Martins, J. Vanderlei (Maryland Univ. Baltimore County (UMBC) Baltimore, MD, United States)
Omar, Ali H. (NASA Langley Research Center Hampton, VA, United States)
Torres, Omar (NASA Langley Research Center Hampton, VA, United States)
Date Acquired
August 26, 2019
Publication Date
July 23, 2019
Publication Information
Publication: Frontiers in Environmental Science
Publisher: Frontiers
Volume: 7
e-ISSN: 2296-665X
Subject Category
Geosciences (General)
Report/Patent Number
GSFC-E-DAA-TN71721
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NNX15AD15G
CONTRACT_GRANT: NNX15AC78G
CONTRACT_GRANT: NNH13ZDA001N-PACEST
CONTRACT_GRANT: 80NSSC18K0345
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Use by or on behalf of the US Gov. Permitted.

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