Improving Remote Sensing of Aerosol Optical Depth over Land by Polarimetric Measurements at 1640 nm: Airborne Test in North China

An improved aerosol retrieval algorithm based on the Advanced Multi-angular Polarized Radiometer (AMPR) is presented to illustrate the utility of additional 1640-nm observations for measuring aerosol optical depth (AOD) over land using look-up table approaches. Spectral neutrality of the polarized surface reflectance over visible to short-wavelength infrared bands is verified, and the 1640-nm measurements corrected for atmospheric effects are used to estimate the polarized surface reflectance at shorter wavelengths. The AMPR measurements over the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region in north China reveal that the polarized surface reflectance of 670, 865 and 1640 nm are highly correlated with correlation slopes close to one (0.985 and 1.03) when the scattering angle is OPEN ACCESS Remote Sens. 2015, 7 6241 less than 145°. The 1640-nm measurements are then employed to estimate polarized surface reflectance at shorter wavelengths for each single viewing direction, which are then used to improve the retrieval of AOD over land. The comparison between AMPR retrievals and ground-based Sun-sky radiometer measurements during three experimental flights illustrates that this approach retrieves AOD at 865 nm with uncertainties ranging from 0.01 to 0.06, while AOD varies from 0.05 to 0.17.