Improved inversion procedure for the retrieval of aerosol size distributions using aureole measurements

An improved inversion procedure for the retrieval of aerosol size distributions using aureole data is presented. The inversion procedure involved a modified Twomey–Chahine algorithm using differential kernels with subsequent averaging and smoothing of the inverted size distributions. The numerical simulations were performed by calculating the angular scattering coefficients between 1.08° and 10° for the wavelength of 0.2537 μm using four different aerosol models, including a realistic noise estimate of 4%. It is demonstrated that the differential kernel method is superior to the conventional direct kernel approach.