Laser Methods for the Accurate Calibration of Satellite-Derived Aerosol and Water Vapor

Aerosols and water vapor have a twofold importance: from one hand, they are among the critical factor of our climate, from the other hand, they can heavily affect satellite imagery. For this reasons, many space-borne sensors are devoted to their monitoring or must take them into account for the measurement of other geo-physical parameters: e.g. in ocean color remote sensing, marine radiance must be separated from the atmospheric contributions, which typically represent about 80% of the total. In this paper we suggest the development of calibrations/validations of the aerosol and water vapor satellite retrieval relying on the optical radar or lidar. In fact, a differential absorption lidar based on a carbon dioxide laser could accurately profile aerosol and water vapor in the planetary boundary layer, the optically thicker zone of the atmosphere.