Aerosol retrievals from 4STAR observations in support of TCAP: sensitivity tests
Authors
Evgueni Kassianov — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Connor J. Flynn — University of Oklahoma School of Meteorology
Jens Redemann — University of Oklahoma
Beat Schmid — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
John Livingston — SRI International
Phil Russell — NASA - Ames Research Center
Alexander Sinyuk — NASA - Goddard Space Flight Center
Category
Aerosol Properties
Description
The Two-Column Aerosol Project (TCAP) field campaign will start in the summer of 2012 and include aircraft-based observations from the Spectrometer for Sky-Scanning, Sun-Tracking Atmospheric Research (4STAR). The 4STAR aims to provide improved retrievals of aerosol optical and microphysical properties using the sun-tracking ability of the current 14-Channel NASA Ames Airborne Tracking Sunphotometer and the sky-scanning ability of the ground-based AERONET sun/sky photometers combined into one compact airborne instrument. Driven by requirements to have a low-profile compact head for airborne operation, the 4STAR entrance optics are considerably shorter than those of the ground-based AERONET instruments. As a result, an artificial enhancement of sky radiance can occur in the 4STAR data at small scattering angles (closer than 6 degrees from the sun). The main objective of this work is to quantify the potential impact of such artificially enhanced sky radiance on 4STAR-based aerosol retrievals during TCAP. To do that, we selected representative cases (both summertime and wintertime) that could be potentially observed during TCAP. We selected cases from the multi-year AERONET climatology at the MVCO AERONET site near Martha’s Vineyard.
