Satellite measurements of tropospheric aerosols
This investigation uses LANDSAT 2 radiance data and ground-truth measurements of the aerosol optical thickness, obtained previously from five inland sites, to study the usefulness and limitations of the near infrared radiance over inland bodies of water. The linear relationship between LANDSAT 2 MSS7 and aerosol content found in this study can be used to estimate the aerosol content with a standard deviation of 0.42N. Analysis of the data for MSS6 and MSS7 suggest that the larger uncertainty is mostly due to water turbidity, with little contribution from the adjacency effect. The relationship found is best applied to determine an average aerosol content over a period of time at a given target, or an area average at a given time over several targets close together.