Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer measurements of aerosol absorption from space: Comparison to SAFARI 2000 ground‐based observations

摘要: Received 6 February 2004; revised 30 July accepted 3 August published 24 2005. [1] The capability to detect the presence of absorbing aerosols in atmosphere using space-based near-UV observations has been demonstrated last few years, as indicated by widespread use atmospheric sciences community Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) aerosol index a qualitative representation absorption. An inversion procedure developed convert unique spectral signature generated interaction molecular scattering and particle absorption into quantitative measure In this work we evaluate accuracy method sensing means comparison TOMS retrieved single albedo extinction optical depth groundbased measurements same parameters Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) for 2-month period during SAFARI 2000 campaign. availability collocated AERONET properties, well Micropulse Lidar vertical distribution, offered rare opportunity evaluation uncertainty associated with height layer retrieval algorithm. Results comparative analysis indicate that absence explicit information on distribution aerosols, standard algorithm assumption yields, most cases, reasonable agreement (±30%) (±0.03) observations. When is available, improves significantly those cases when actual profile markedly different from idealized algorithmic assumption.