Aerosol Optical Thickness Retrieval Using a Small Satellite

This study demonstrates the feasibility of small satellite, namely PROBA platform with the compact high resolution imaging spectrometer (CHRIS), for aerosol retrieval in Hong Kong. The rationale of our technique is to estimate the aerosol reflectances by decomposing the Top of Atmosphere (TOA) reflectances from surface reflectance and Rayleigh path reflectances. For the determination of surface reflectances, the modified Minimum Reflectance Technique (MRT) is used on three winter ortho-rectified CHRIS images: Dec-18-2005, Feb-07-2006, Nov-09-2006. For validation purpose, MRT image was compared with ground based multispectral radiometer measurements and atmospherically corrected Landsat image. Results show good agreements between CHRIS-derived surface reflectance and both by ground measurement data as well as by Landsat image (r>0.84). The Root-Mean-Square Errors (RMSE) at 485, 551 and 660nm are 0.99%, 1.19%, and 1.53%, respectively. For aerosol retrieval, Look Up Tables (LUT) which are aerosol reflectances as a function of various AOT values were calculated by SBDART code with AERONET inversion products. The CHRIS derived Aerosol Optical Thickness (AOT) images were then validated with AERONET sunphotometer measurements and the differences are 0.05~0.11 (error=10~18%) at 440nm wavelength. The errors are relatively small compared to those from the operational moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) Deep Blue algorithm (within 30%) and MODIS ocean algorithm (within 20%).