Interpretation of ground-based measurements of atmospheric aerosols

This work describes a procedure to estimate optical properties of atmospheric aerosols by using polarization data. Polarization degree and optical thickness of the atmospheric constituents have been simultaneously measured by a photopolarimeter, whose spectral bands are set up to correspond to the ADEOS/POLDER. The authors´ algorithms are based on light scattering simulations of the polarization field. It is found: (1) the typical oceanic type aerosol is one candidate to investigate the photopolarimetry observed over the Seto Inland Sea, (2) it is more natural to consider that the continental type aerosol exists together with the oceanic type, (3) the magnitude of polarization degree is reduced due to multiple scattering diffusion