AERONET - the AERONET (AErosol RObotic NETwork) is a network of ground-based

sun photometer A Sun photometer is a type of photometer conceived in such a way that it points at the Sun. Recent sun photometers are automated instruments incorporating a Sun-tracking unit, an appropriate optical system, a spectrally filtering device, a photo ...

s which measure atmospheric aerosol properties. The measurement system is a solar-powered CIMEL Electronique 318A spectral radiometer that measures Sun and sky

radiance In radiometry, radiance is the radiant flux emitted, reflected, transmitted or received by a given surface, per unit solid angle per unit projected area. Radiance is used to characterize diffuse emission and reflection of electromagnetic radiati ...

s at a number of fixed wavelengths within the visible and near-infrared spectrum. There is one sea-based reading location aboard the E/V Nautilus, the exploration vessel operated by Dr. Robert Ballard and the Sea Research Foundation. Two readings per day are taken aboard the ship while it is in operation. AERONET provides continuous cloud-screened observations of

spectral ''Spectral'' is a 2016 Hungarian-American military science fiction action film co-written and directed by Nic Mathieu. Written with Ian Fried & George Nolfi, the film stars James Badge Dale as DARPA research scientist Mark Clyne, with Max Marti ...

aerosol optical depth In physics, optical depth or optical thickness is the natural logarithm of the ratio of incident to ''transmitted'' radiant power through a material. Thus, the larger the optical depth, the smaller the amount of transmitted radiant power throu ...

(AOD),

precipitable water Precipitable water is the depth of water in a column of the atmosphere, if all the water in that column were precipitated as rain. As a depth, the precipitable water is measured in millimeters or inches. Often abbreviated as "TPW", for Total Preci ...

, and inversion aerosol products in diverse aerosol regimes. Inversion products are retrieved from

almucantar An almucantar (also spelled almucantarat or almacantara) is a circle on the celestial sphere parallel to the horizon. Two stars that lie on the same almucantar have the same Altitude (astronomy), altitude. :wikt:almucantar, The term was introduced ...

scans of radiance as a function of scattering angle and include products such as aerosol volume size distribution, aerosol complex

refractive index In optics, the refractive index (or refraction index) of an optical medium is the ratio of the apparent speed of light in the air or vacuum to the speed in the medium. The refractive index determines how much the path of light is bent, or refrac ...

, optical absorption (

single scattering albedo Single-scattering albedo is the ratio of scattering efficiency to total extinction efficiency (which is also termed "attenuance", a sum of scattering and absorption). Most often it is defined for small-particle scattering of electromagnetic radiatio ...

) and the aerosol scattering phase function. All these products represent an average of the total aerosol column within the atmosphere. The aerosol properties are retrieved via an inversion algorithm developed by Dubovik and King (2000). Further algorithms were developed, for example, by Dubovik et al. (2006) to take into account non-spherical shapes of aerosol particles such as mineral dust. AERONET is an observing system in the NOAA Observing System Architecture.

References

Holben B.N., T.F. Eck, I. Slutsker, D. Tanré, J.P. Buis, A. Setzer, E. Vermote, J.A. Reagan, Y. Kaufman, T. Nakajima, F. Lavenu, I. Jankowiak, and A. Smirnov, 1998: AERONET - A federated instrument network and data archive for aerosol characterization, Rem. Sens. Environ., 66, 1-16. Dubovik, O. and M. D. King, 2000: A flexible inversion algorithm for retrieval of aerosol optical properties from Sun and sky radiance measurements, J. Geophys. Res., 105, 20 673-20 696. Dubovik, O., A. Sinyuk, T. Lapyonok, B. N. Holben, M. Mishchenko, P. Yang, T. F. Eck, H. Volten, O. Munoz, B. Veihelmann, W. J. van der Zande, J-F Leon, M. Sorokin, and I. Slutsker, 2006: Application of spheroid models to account for aerosol particle nonsphericity in remote sensing of desert dust. J. Geophys. Res., 111, {{doi, 10.1029/2005JD006619.

External links

NASA Goddard AERONET site
Meteorological data and networks Aerosol measurement

See also

References

External links