Availability of polarization information for the hazy aerosol analysis

Abstract

The number of severe wildfires has increased globally since 2019, occurring every day worldwide. Therefore, our previous studies have focused on the characterization of biomass burning aerosols derived from heavy wildfires. Serious aerosol events include not only biomass burning plumes, but also many other kinds of aerosol events such as desert dust storms and those derived from the combination of natural factors and human activities. This work proposes the use of polarization information for detecting severe aerosol events, using wildfire as an example. The Japanese mission JAXA/GCOM (Global Change Observation Mission-Climate)-C (SHIKISAI in Japanese), launched in 2017, carried a second-generation global imager (SGLI). The SGLI contains 19 channels from near-ultraviolet to thermal infrared (IR), including red (674 nm designated as the PL1 band) and near-IR (869 nm; PL2 band) polarization channels. This work intends to demonstrate the advantages of the SGLI, especially polarization information, in detecting and characterizing severe biomass burning aerosols.