SENSITIVITY STUDY OF THE DUAL-VIEW ALGORITHM FOR AEROSOL OPTICAL THICKNESS RETRIEVAL OVER SNOW AND ICE

Dual-view observations provide the possibility to retrieve aerosol optical thickness (AOT) with only minor assumptions about the surface albedo. The algorithm of such retrieval over very bright surfaces – snow and ice was established and tested. The sensitivity study was carried out using the simulated data set calculated with radiative transfer code SCIATRAN [1], for Lambertian snow surfaces. The observation geometries were similar to that of doubleview observation geometries of AATSR – 0° and 55°. The illumination angles were similar to Sun elevation angles during Arctic summer. During the algorithm testing we used several measured and calculated aerosol phase functions. Some preliminary results were derived for AATSR data token over snow-covered areas.