Method for Estimation of Aerosol Parameters Based on Ground Based Atmospheric Polarization Irradiance Measurements

Method for aerosol refractive index estimation with ground based polarization measurement data is proposed. The proposed method uses a dependency of refractive index on p and s polarized down welling solar diffuse irradiance. It is much easy to measure p and s polarized irradiance on the ground with a portable measuring instrument rather than solar direct, diffuse and aureole measurements. Through theoretical and simulation studies, it is found that the proposed method show a good estimation accuracy of refractive index using measured down welling p and s polarized irradiance data with a measuring instrument pointing to the direction which is perpendicular to the sun in the principal plane. Field experimental results also show a validity of the proposed method in comparison to the estimated results from the conventional method with solar direct, diffuse and aureole measurement data. KeywordsDegree of Polarization; aerosol refractive index; size distribution