The BOREAS Information System

RSS-11: Characterization of Atmospheric Optical Properties for BOREAS

P.I.(s): Brian L. Markham, Brent N. Holben -- NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Co-I(s): Yoram J. Kaufman -- NASA/GSFC; Rangasayi Halthore, Tom Eck -- Hughes STX Corp.; Eric Vermote -- Univ. of Maryland

Objectives: To characterize the physical and optical properties of the atmospheric aerosol and the atmospheric column abundance's of water vapor and ozone over the BOREAS study area. A network of three to four fully three to four fully automatic sunphotometers/radiometers was established on a transect connecting the northern and southern BOREAS sites. These sites provided hourly direct solar and diffuse sky radiance measurements in the solar almucantar in the visible to near-infrared. During the intensive field campaigns the measurements were supplemented by additional movable stations and sampling of the aerosol particles. Aerosol physical properties of size distribution/concentration and composition, and aerosol optical properties of optical depth, phase function and albedo of single scattering were also determined. The annual cycle of the concentration and properties of the atmospheric aerosol particles in the Boreal region and the relation between the aerosol properties and the meteorological conditions, in particular the air trajectory and origin, is being assessed. The measured atmospheric properties are being used to validate retrieval algorithms of atmospheric parameters (e.g., water vapor, aerosol optical depths) from remotely sensed data. For selected remotely sensed data, atmospheric corrections are being performed using a radiative transfer code that accounts for the non-Lambertian forest canopy reflectance. The retrieved reflectances are being compared to those measured at the surface and to those obtained using the atmospheric correction methodology used operationally by the BOREAS project.

RSS-11 Pictures

The sun photometer at SSA-YJP (with RSS-11)

RSS-11 Data Sets