Explicit and consistent aerosol correction for visible wavelength satellite cloud and nitrogen dioxide retrievals based on optical properties from a global aerosol analysis

Abstract. We discuss an explicit and consistent aerosol correction for cloud and NO2 retrievals that are based on the mixed Lambertian-equivalent reflectivity (MLER) concept. We apply the approach to data from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) for a case study over norththeast Asia. The cloud algorithm reports an effective cloud pressure, also known as cloud optical centroid pressure (OCP), from oxygen dimer (O2–O2) absorption at 477 nm after determining an effective cloud fraction (ECF) at 466 nm. The retrieved cloud products are then used as inputs to the standard OMI NO2 algorithm. A geometry-dependent Lambertian-equivalent reflectivity (GLER), which is a proxy of surface bidirectional reflectance, is used for the ground reflectivity in our implementation of the MLER approach. The current standard OMI cloud and NO2 algorithms implicitly account for aerosols by treating them as non-absorbing particulate scatters within the cloud retrieval. To explicitly account for aerosol effects, we use a model of aerosol optical properties from a global aerosol assimilation system and radiative transfer computations. This approach allows us to account for aerosols within the OMI cloud and NO2 algorithms with relatively small changes. We compare the OMI cloud and NO2 retrievals with implicit and explicit aerosol corrections over our study area.