Retrieval of Spectral Aerosol Optical Thickness over Land Surface from Multi-Wavelength Polarization Space-Borne Sensors

Polarization space-borne sensor, just like POLDER (Polarization and Directionality of the Earth´s Reflectances), is a new instrument devoted to the global observation of solar radiation reflected by the Earth surface-atmosphere system. It is necessary to acquire polarized information in retrieval of aerosol properties over land surface. Often the aerosol contribution is small compared to the surface, especially by covered vegetation. Atmospheric scattering is much more polarized than the surface reflectance. Using polarized information could solve the inverse problem of separating the surface and atmospheric scattering contributions. This paper presents retrieval of aerosols properties from multi-wavelength polarized measurements. The results suggest that it is feasible and possibility for discriminating the aerosol contribution from the surface in the aerosol retrieval procedure using multidirectional and multiwavelegth polarization measurements.