A Method for Unbiased High-Resolution Aerosol Retrieval from Landsat

Abstract

Abstract Because the land surface reflectance varies spatially, the atmospheric radiative transfer over land in clear-sky conditions is essentially three-dimensional. This is manifested through horizontal radiative fluxes that blur satellite images. It is important that the atmospheric blurring systematically increases the apparent brightness of the dark pixels. As a consequence, there are systematic biases in the satellite products of aerosol optical thickness and surface albedo over dark targets based on 1D theory, which may have a negative impact on climate research. Below, a new dark target method is presented for unbiased simultaneous retrieval of the aerosol model and optical thickness over land from Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) data, based on 3D radiative transfer theory. The method automatically selects an aerosol model from a large set of candidate models using a statistical approach of the probability distribution function. The dark target method of aerosol retrieval in the blue ...