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JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 110, D10S18, doi:10.1029/2004JD004611, 2005

Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer measurements of aerosol absorption from space: Comparison to SAFARI 2000 ground-based observations

O. Torres

Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland, USA


P. K. Bhartia

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA


A. Sinyuk

Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland, USA


E. J. Welton

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA


B. Holben

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA


Abstract

The capability to detect the presence of absorbing aerosols in the atmosphere using space-based near-UV observations has been demonstrated in the last few years, as indicated by the widespread use by the atmospheric sciences community of the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) aerosol index as a qualitative representation of aerosol absorption. An inversion procedure has been developed to convert the unique spectral signature generated by the interaction of molecular scattering and particle absorption into a quantitative measure of aerosol absorption. In this work we evaluate the accuracy of the near-UV method of aerosol absorption sensing by means of a comparison of TOMS retrieved aerosol single scattering albedo and extinction optical depth to ground-based measurements of the same parameters by the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) for a 2-month period during the SAFARI 2000 campaign. The availability of collocated AERONET observations of aerosol properties, as well as Micropulse Lidar Network measurements of the aerosol vertical distribution, offered a rare opportunity for the evaluation of the uncertainty associated with the height of the absorbing aerosol layer in the TOMS aerosol retrieval algorithm. Results of the comparative analysis indicate that in the absence of explicit information on the vertical distribution of the aerosols, the standard TOMS algorithm assumption yields, in most cases, reasonable agreement of aerosol optical depth (±30%) and single scattering albedo (±0.03) with the AERONET observations. When information on the aerosol vertical distribution is available, the accuracy of the retrieved parameters improves significantly in those cases when the actual aerosol profile is markedly different from the idealized algorithmic assumption.

Received 6 February 2004; accepted 3 August 2004; published 24 February 2005.

Keywords: aerosols; absorption; satellite; validation; AERONET; TOMS.

Index Terms: 0305 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Aerosols and particles (0345, 4801, 4906); 0345 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Pollution: urban and regional (0305, 0478, 4251); 0360 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Radiation: transmission and scattering; 0394 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Instruments and techniques; 0480 Biogeosciences: Remote sensing.

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Citation: Torres, O., P. K. Bhartia, A. Sinyuk, E. J. Welton, and B. Holben (2005), Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer measurements of aerosol absorption from space: Comparison to SAFARI 2000 ground-based observations, J. Geophys. Res., 110, D10S18, doi:10.1029/2004JD004611.