Abstract
The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) on board NASA's Aqua satellite platform is the first of a new generation of high-spectral resolution temperature and humidity sounders for numerical weather prediction and climate change studies. AIRS radiances are impacted by airborne mineral dust over wide portions of the globe. We present here an in-depth analysis of a dust storm in the eastern Mediterranean in October 2002. Using Mie scattering theory with a fast two stream model optimized for the AIRS instrument, dust optical depths were retrieved in order to demonstrate the utility of AIRS for the characterization of airborne dust. Results are compared to MODIS observations of the same storm. These results highlight the capability of infrared hyperspectral sensors to retrieve dust optical parameters at night, unlike near-IR and visible sensors. We will also present global observations of dust, over ocean, using AIRS to illustrate how dust contamination may affect a significant fraction of operational sounder observations.
© 2005 Optical Society of America
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