Simultaneous determination of aerosol and thin cirrus optical depths over oceans from MODIS data: Some case studies

The importance of separating thin cirrus and aerosols from satellite remote sensing to produce broader and more accurate fields for the determination of respective radiative forcings is highlighted. This has been accomplished through the development of a new methodology for retrieving both thin cirrus and aerosol optical depths simultaneously over oceans from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. This method employs a procedure to quantify and remove the thin cirrus contribution to the observed reflectance through a correlation of visible and 1.38-mu m reflectances so that the aerosol signal can be extracted. Aerosol optical depths are then retrieved through comparisons with the simulated reflectances created a priori. Using the aerosol optical depth along with the specific viewing geometry and surface reflectance as pointers to locations in a lookup table of modeled reflectances, cirrus optical depth and an effective ice crystal size can be retrieved. An iterative scheme has been created that uses the retrieved effective cirrus ice crystal size to account for the effect that the particle size distribution has on the correlation of visible and 1.38-mu m reflectance. Retrievals of both aerosol and thin cirrus optical depths over the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Tropical Western Pacific (TWP) site of Nauru performed on a limited number of cases have proven to be consistent with values determined from ground measurements. Also, comparisons with the MODIS aerosol retrievals over a broad area of ocean have highlighted the potential usefulness of this procedure in increasing the amount of potential aerosol information recovered and removing the ever-present thin cirrus contamination.