Author(s)

C. Bassani, R. M. Cavalli & S. Pignatti

Abstract

Aerosols are the principal atmospheric constituents which the radiative field in the atmospheric window of solar spectral domain depends on. This dependence have to be considered when the radiative quantities of the atmosphere are simulated for solving the radiative transfer equation written for at sensor signal. The most important parameter for these simulations is the aerosol optical thickness at wavelength of λ = 550 nm, τa(λ = 550 nm), that is an input of the atmospheric radiative transfer codes used by the scientific community. The study carried out is based on the estimation of τa(λ = 550 nm) starting only from the MIVIS (Multispectral Infrared and Visible Imaging Spectrometer) remote sensing data. A minimization algorithm is applied to a quadratic cost function of the τa(λ = 550 nm) variable. In this paper are presented the preliminary results obtained from the MIVIS image processing in particulary pixels that satisfy both the conditions of lambertianity and spectral homogeneity of the surface. Keywords: aerosol optical thickness, atmospheric radiative transfer, scattering, remote sensing. 1 Introduction The aerosols are significant atmospheric constituents to estimate and predict direct component of climate forcing by scattering and absorption of solar and infrared radiation in the atmosphere [1]. Besides, Houghton et al. [1] showed that the aerosol mass and particle number concentrations are highly variable in space and time representing one of the largest uncertainties in climate change studies. In the

Keywords

aerosol optical thickness, atmospheric radiative transfer, scattering, remote sensing.