An Approach for Aerosol Retrievals over Canada´s Landmass from Historical AVHRR 1-km Observations

The accurate atmospheric correction of historical satellite long-term data is required to make them suitable for climate change application. The correction of satellite data over land for aerosol effect constitutes the most challenging part of the processing. In this paper we explored an opportunity to use inland water bodies over Canada to retrieve aerosol optical depth. Because of large water fraction this approach looks quite promising over Canada territory. The details of water surface reflection model and retrieval scheme are presented. The comparison with AERONET ground-based sun photometer retrievals looks quite encouraging. This opens an opportunity for improved atmospheric correction of historical AVHRR 1-km data over Canada´s landmass.