HR: 1340h
AN: A23A-0885    [Abstracts]
TI: The Intercomparison of Aerosol Properties Measured by SAGE II and SAGE III
AU: * Yue, G K
EM: Glenn.K.Yue@nasa.gov
AF: NASA Langley Research Center, 100 NASA Road, Hampton, VA 23681, United States
AU: Fromm, M D
EM: mike.fromm@nrl.navy.mil
AF: Naval Research Laboratory, Remote Sensing Division, Washington, DC 20375, United States
AU: Shettle, E P
EM: shettle@nrl.navy.mil
AF: Naval Research Laboratory, Remote Sensing Division, Washington, DC 20375, United States
AB: Satellite experiments SAGE II and SAGE III measure aerosol extinctions at different wavelengths ranging from 385 nm to 1020 nm for SAGE II and to 1550 nm for SAGE III. However, for many applications the utility of aerosol extinction is limited. The retrieval of more useful aerosol size distribution and integral properties from the measured extinctions presents a real challenge to atmospheric scientists. In this paper, the linear minimizing error (LME) method to retrieve aerosol properties is discussed. This approach assumes that the aerosol size distribution can be approximated by a histogram of number density as a function of particle size. The retrieved number density in each bin and the integral properties, including surface area and volume densities, are expressed as linear combinations of the aerosol extinction coefficients at different wavelengths. The coefficients in the weighted linear combination are obtained by minimizing the average of retrieval errors over a set of testing size distributions. It is found that aerosol volume density can be more accurately retrieved than the surface area density. Since both SAGE II and SAGE III conduced measurements between 2002 and 2005, there are comparison opportunities when their measurement locations on the same day are nearly coincident.In this study, the comparisons of aerosol properties deduced from SAGE II and SAGE III measurements are reported. It is found that the differences are within about 30%.
DE: 0300 ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE
DE: 0305 Aerosols and particles (0345, 4801, 4906)
DE: 0394 Instruments and techniques
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting