Abstract

A family of methods for aerosol retrievals are based on the monitoring of the radiance from a dark target of known reflectance (ocean) which is inverted in an appropriate aerosol model to obtain the correct aerosol optical thickness for that surface reflectance. This approach, begun over oceans using Landsat MSS [1], developed into a routine NOAA product using weekly AVHRR data sets [2]. This ocean method discussed above dense, dark green vegetation (covering 30% of land surface) replaced the ocean as the dark target and showed good results for forests near Chesapeake Bay using Landsat MSS [3]. In this paper we shall discuss the method (section 2) and validation (section 3) of this technique to the AVHRR incorporating the 3.75 μm channel not available on the Landsat platform. Several applications and comparison with ground measurements are given though a sensitivity study of the expected accuracies for the AVHRR.

© 1991 Optical Society of America