Analysis of Global Three-Dimensional Aerosol Structure with Spectral Radiance Matching

Abstract. A method is assessed which expands aerosol vertical profiles inferred from nadir-pointing lidars to cross-track locations next to nadir columns. This is achieved via matching of passive radiances at off-nadir locations with their counterparts that are collocated with lidar data. This spectral radiance matching (SRM) method is tested using profiles inferred from CALIPSO lidar observations and collocated MODIS passive imagery for the periods 10–25 April and 14–29 September 2015. CALIPSO profiles are expanded out to 100 km on both sides of the daytime ground-track. Reliability of constructed profiles that are removed from the ground-track by N km are tested by requiring the algorithm to reconstruct profiles using only profiles that are removed from it along-track by more than N km. When sufficient numbers of pixels/columns are available, the SRM method can correctly match ~ 75 % and ~ 68 % of aerosol vertical structure at distances of 30 km and 100 km from the ground-track, respectively. The construction algorithm is applied to the east coast of Asia during spring 2015. Vertical distributions of different aerosol subtypes indicate that the region was dominated by dust and polluted dust transported from the continent. It is shown that aerosol optical depths inferred from ground-based measurements agree with those constructed by the SRM method better than direct observation from CALIPSO, and close to those inferred from MODIS radiances.