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Absorption of sunlight by dust as inferred from satellite and ground‐based remote sensing
Author(s) -
Kaufman Y. J.,
Tanré Didier,
Dubovik O.,
Karnieli A.,
Remer L. A.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2000gl012647
Subject(s) - satellite , remote sensing , environmental science , albedo (alchemy) , absorption (acoustics) , sky , sunlight , radiation , diffuse sky radiation , wavelength , atmospheric sciences , scattering , meteorology , physics , optics , geology , astronomy , art , performance art , art history
Dust absorption of solar radiation is not well known due to limitations in the accuracy of in situ measurements. Here we report two new independent remote sensing techniques that provide sensitive measurements of dust absorption. One uses satellite spectral measurements, the second ground based sky measurements. Both techniques demonstrate that Saharan dust absorption of solar radiation is several times smaller than the current international standards. For example, at wavelength of 0.64 µm the dust single scattering albedo is reported here as 0.97±0.02 rather than 0.87±0.04 in recent review.