Aerosol size distribution using sun-photometer and artificial neural network

Aerosol size distribution (ASD) is an integral parameter in regional atmospheric models [1]. The LIDAR laboratory at UPRM will provide Puerto Rico a means of measuring ASD, and therefore improve these models. This project intends to develop a method of obtaining ASD with the use of a sun-photometer, local CIMEL data obtained from AERONET (Aerosol Robotic Network) [2], and an artificial neural network (ANN). The sun-photometer used is an instrument that measures Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) on five wavelengths. A feed-forward, back-propagation artificial neural network was used to map the underlying pattern between AOD and ASD in southwestern Puerto Rico. All of the data points available from the La Parguera AERONET station was used for the training of the network, and the ASD predictions by the ANN were very close with small errors in the order of 10-4.