Satellite detection of smoke aerosols over a snow/ice surface by TOMS

A recently developed technique of using satellite UV radiance measurements to detect absorbing tropospheric aerosols is found to be effective over snow/ice surfaces. This method takes advantage of the wavelength dependent reduction in the backscattered radiance due to the presence of absorbing aerosols over snow/ice surfaces. An example of the aerosol distribution derived from Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) data is shown for an August 1998 event in which smoke generated by Canadian forest fires drifts over and across Greenland. During this event, the TOMS observed 360 nm reflectivity over the snow/ice surface dropped drastically from 90-100% down to 30-40%. We investigated the history of smoke events over snow/ice and found that there is a large interannual variability in the amount of smoke aerosols observed over Greenland.