Utilization of Nasa’s Glory Aerosol Polarimetric Sensor Products in Visual Air Quality Image Processing System

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Glory mission, a remote sensing Earth-orbiting observatory, which was scheduled for launch in June of 2009 but now delayed for October of 2010 [1], as part of the A-train constellation (705 km altitude, 98.2 degrees inclination) Sun-Synchronous orbit. Glory mission objective is to increase our understanding of aerosols as agents of climate change by flying an Aerosol Polarimetry Sensor (APS), and continue measuring the sun’s direct and indirect effects on climate by flying a Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM) instruments. APS will help to quantify the role of aerosols as natural and anthropogenic agents of climate change with much better accuracy than existing instruments. Glory APS products such as aerosol optical thickness, size distribution, scattering albedo, etc. can be applied as physical constraints in model assessments of the aerosol direct and indirect effects in visual air quality studies.