Multi-angle polarization imager: a satellite sensor for studies of continental aerosols

Abstract

Knowledge of aerosol radiative forcing over land is essential to answer crucial questions related to climate change. Retrieval of aerosol properties over land is complicated due to irregular terrain characteristics and high surface reflection. The retrieval of algorithms used in conventional satellite sensors for continental regions is not completely free from the high reflectance effect and hence leads to large uncertainties in the retrieved parameters. We propose a dedicated satellite sensor namely multi-angle polarization imager (MAPI). The main characteristic of MAPI is multi-spectral and multi-angle measurements of polarized components of reflected radiation from the Earth. The proposed sensor has capability of aerosol retrieval over land. The sensor also has the ability to discriminate dust aerosols (which is the major natural aerosol over land) from other aerosols (using infrared radiance). This is the first step towards separating natural and anthropogenic aerosols, which is needed for the scientific community at large.