Path radiance technique for retrieving aerosol optical thickness over land

The key issue in retrieving aerosol optical thickness over land from shortwave satellite radiances is to identify and separate the signal due to scattering by a largely transparent aerosol layer from the noise due to reflection by the background surface, where the signal is relatively uniform compared to the highly inhomogeneous surface contribution. Sensitivity studies in aerosol optical thickness retrievals reveal that the apparent reflectance at the top of the atmosphere is very susceptible to the surface reflectance, especially when aerosol optical thickness is small. Uncertainties associated with surface reflectance estimation can greatly amplify the error of the aerosol optical thickness retrieval. To reduce these uncertainties, we have developed a "path radiance" method to retrieve aerosol optical thickness over land by extending the traditional technique that uses the "dark object" approach to extract the aerosol signal. This method uses the signature of the correlation of visible and middle-IR reflectance at the surface and couples the correlation with the atmospheric effect. We have applied this method to a Landsat TM (Thematic Mapper) image acquired over the Oklahoma southern Great Plains site of the Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program on September 27, 1997, a very clear day (aerosol optical thickness of 0.07 at 0.5 mu m) during the first Landsat Intensive Observation Period. The retrieved mean aerosol optical thickness for TM band 1 at 0.49 mu m and band 3 at 0.66 mu m agree very well with the ground-based Sun photometer measurements at the ARM site. The ability to retrieve small aerosol optical thickness makes this path radiance technique promising. More importantly, the path radiance is relatively insensitive to surface inhomogeneity. The retrieved mean path radiances in reflectance units have very small standard deviations for both TM blue and red bands. This small variability of path radiance further supports the current aerosol retrieval method.