The effects of non-sphericity on geostationary satellite retrievals of dust aerosols

[1] Using data collected during the Puerto Rico Dust Experiment (PRIDE), we examine the effect of nonspherical phase functions on dust aerosol retrievals from geostationary satellites. We utilize a statistical model based on Scanning Electron Micrograph (SEM) analysis of individual dust particles. Using T-matrix calculations and assuming that dust particles are randomly-orientated oblate spheroids we compute the dust phase function and scattering properties. Although the non-spherical function developed in this study compares well with the synthetic non-spherical phase functions [Liu et al., 2003], new retrievals using the non-spherical phase function only show slight improvement at scattering angles ( ) from 110 150 , and become worse for between 150 170 . However the retrievals are greatly improved at all angles when retrieval algorithms account for the combined effect of both spherical and non-spherical phase functions.