The reflection and polarization properties of non-spherical aerosol particles

In this paper, we investigate the capability of multi-angle TOA reflectance and polarized reflectance for the retrieval of aerosol properties including aerosol mode (fine mode and coarse mode), aerosol shape (sphere and non-spherical), and aerosol optical thickness. Single-scattering parameters and phase-matrix elements were computed for randomly oriented non-spherical aerosol particles. Sensitivity indices were introduced to quantify the sensitivity of the TOA total reflectance and polarized reflectance to aerosol parameters. Finally, on the basis of the sensitivity study, this paper presents a conceptual approach toward the remote sensing of non-spherical aerosol three parameters (aerosol mode, aerosol shape, and aerosol optical thickness) using the TOA total reflectance and TOA polarized reflectance for the 0.865 μm spectral bands measured at multiple viewing angles.