A Long-Term Record of Aerosol Optical Depth from TOMS Observations and Comparison to AERONET Measurements

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dc.contributor.authorTorres, O.
dc.contributor.authorBhartia, P. K.
dc.contributor.authorHerman, Jay
dc.contributor.authorSinyuk, A.
dc.contributor.authorGinoux, Paul
dc.contributor.authorHolben, Brent
dc.date.accessioned2023-07-11T21:30:00Z
dc.date.available2023-07-11T21:30:00Z
dc.date.issued2002-02-01
dc.description.abstractObservations of backscattered near-ultraviolet radiation from the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) on board the Nimbus-7 (1979–92) and the Earth Probe (mid-1996 to present) satellites have been used to derive a long-term record of aerosol optical depth over oceans and continents. The retrieval technique applied to the TOMS data makes use of two unique advantages of near-UV remote sensing not available in the visible or near-IR: 1) low reflectivity of all land surface types (including the normally bright deserts in the visible), which makes possible aerosol retrieval over the continents; and 2) large sensitivity to aerosol types that absorb in the UV, allowing the clear separation of carbonaceous and mineral aerosols from purely scattering particles such as sulfate and sea salt aerosols. The near-UV method of aerosol characterization is validated by comparison with Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) ground-based observations. TOMS retrievals of aerosol optical depth over land areas (1996–2000) are shown to agree reasonably well with AERONET sun photometer observations for a variety of environments characterized by different aerosol types, such as carbonaceous aerosols from biomass burning, desert dust aerosols, and sulfate aerosols. In most cases the TOMS-derived optical depths of UV-absorbing aerosols are within 30% of the AERONET observations, while nonabsorbing optical depths agree to within 20%. The results presented here constitute the first long-term nearly global climatology of aerosol optical depth over both land and water surfaces, extending the observations of aerosol optical depth to regions and times (1979 to present) not accessible to ground-based observations.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipThe authors would like to thank Didier Tanre from Universite´ de Sciences et Techniques de Lille, France, for the AERONET data at the Banizoumbou and Bidi-Bahn sites used in this analysis. This work was supported in part by the NASA Global Aerosol Climatology Project (GACP) under Grant NAG5-7774. Comments and suggestions from two anonymous reviewers are gratefully acknowledged.en_US
dc.description.urihttps://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/atsc/59/3/1520-0469_2002_059_0398_altroa_2.0.co_2.xmlen_US
dc.format.extent16 pagesen_US
dc.genrejournal articlesen_US
dc.identifierdoi:10.13016/m2jnnr-uhkz
dc.identifier.citationTorres, O., P. K. Bhartia, J. R. Herman, A. Sinyuk, Paul Ginoux, and Brent Holben. "A Long-Term Record of Aerosol Optical Depth from TOMS Observations and Comparison to AERONET Measurements", Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 59, 3 (2002): 398-413, doi: https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0469(2002)059<0398:ALTROA>2.0.CO;2en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0469(2002)059%3C0398:ALTROA%3E2.0.CO;2
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11603/28595
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.publisherAMSen_US
dc.relation.isAvailableAtThe University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC GESTAR II Collection
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET)
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC Faculty Collection
dc.rightsThis work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.en_US
dc.rightsPublic Domain Mark 1.0*
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/*
dc.titleA Long-Term Record of Aerosol Optical Depth from TOMS Observations and Comparison to AERONET Measurementsen_US
dc.typeTexten_US
dcterms.creatorhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-9146-1632en_US

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