Remote Sensing of Atmospheric Aerosol

Atmospheric aerosol influences precipitation, weather and climate change, cloud formation and optical properties, air quality, atmospheric radiative transfer, dynamics, and thermodynamics. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to develop techniques for monitoring aerosol properties on global and local scales. Optical methods are most suitable for the aerosol remote sensing because the main fraction of aerosol has sizes close to that of a visible (VIS)/shortwave infrared (SWIR) light wavelength. Therefore, aerosols effectively scatter light, and their properties can be derived from various light scattering experiments. This is done by employing various optical instrumentation placed on satellites, ships, and aircrafts. Several ground networks of optical instruments for aerosol monitoring exist such as AERONET, SKYNET, and EARLINET. This chapter reviews main methods and recent results obtained in a broad area of aerosol remote sensing using optical methods. Ground-based, airborne, and satellite techniques are presented.