Characterization of aerosol pollution events in France using ground-based and POLDER-2 satellite data

We analyze the relationship between daily fine particle mass concentration (PM2.5) and columnar aerosol optical thickness derived from the Polarization and Directionality of Earth's Reflectances (POLDER) satellite sensor. The study is focused over France during the POLDER-2 lifetime between April and October 2003. We have first compared the POLDER derived aerosol optical thickness (AOT) with integrated volume size distribution derived from ground-based Sun Photometer observations. The good correlation (R=0.72) with sub-micron volume fraction indicates that POLDER derived AOT is sensitive to the fine aerosol mass concentration. Considering 1974 match-up data points over 28 fine particle monitoring sites, the POLDER-2 derived AOT is fairly well correlated with collocated PM2.5 measurements, with a correlation coefficient of 0.55. The correlation coefficient reaches a maximum of 0.80 for particular sites. We have analyzed the probability to find an appropriate air quality category (AQC) as defined by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from POLDER-2 AOT measurements. The probability can be up to 88.8% (±3.7%) for the "Good" AQC and 89.1% (±3.6%) for the "Moderate" AQC.

[1]  F. Bréon,et al.  Global observation of anthropogenic aerosols from satellite , 2001 .

[2]  Alma Hodzic,et al.  Long-term urban aerosol simulation versus routine particulate matter observations , 2005 .

[3]  B. Holben,et al.  Global monitoring of air pollution over land from the Earth Observing System-Terra Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) , 2003 .

[4]  Basil W. Coutant,et al.  Qualitative and quantitative evaluation of MODIS satellite sensor data for regional and urban scale air quality , 2004 .

[5]  F. Bréon,et al.  Aerosol Effect on Cloud Droplet Size Monitored from Satellite , 2002, Science.

[6]  Michael D. King,et al.  A flexible inversion algorithm for retrieval of aerosol optical properties from Sun and sky radiance measurements , 2000 .

[7]  D. Chu,et al.  Improving National Air Quality Forecasts with Satellite Aerosol Observations , 2005 .

[8]  A. Smirnov,et al.  AERONET-a federated instrument network and data archive for aerosol Characterization , 1998 .

[9]  Jun Wang,et al.  Intercomparison between satellite‐derived aerosol optical thickness and PM2.5 mass: Implications for air quality studies , 2003 .

[10]  O. Boucher,et al.  Estimation of the aerosol perturbation to the Earth's Radiative Budget over oceans using POLDER satellite aerosol retrievals , 2000 .

[11]  D. Tanré,et al.  Remote Sensing of Tropospheric Aerosols from Space: Past, Present, and Future. , 1999 .

[12]  Florence Nadal,et al.  Parameterization of surface polarized reflectance derived from POLDER spaceborne measurements , 1999, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[13]  F. Maignan,et al.  Remote sensing of aerosols over land surfaces from POLDER‐ADEOS‐1 polarized measurements , 2001 .

[14]  Jean-François Léon,et al.  Mineral dust sources in the surroundings of the north Indian Ocean , 2003 .

[15]  Reto Knutti,et al.  Climate Forcing by Aerosols--a Hazy Picture , 2003, Science.

[16]  O. Boucher,et al.  A satellite view of aerosols in the climate system , 2002, Nature.

[17]  Stéphane Colzy,et al.  Cloud Detection from the Spaceborne POLDER Instrument and Validation against Surface Synoptic Observations , 1999 .

[18]  T. Eck,et al.  Accuracy assessments of aerosol optical properties retrieved from Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) Sun and sky radiance measurements , 2000 .

[19]  D. Allen Chu,et al.  Retrieval, validation, and application of the 1-km aerosol optical depth from MODIS measurements over Hong Kong , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[20]  Alexander Smirnov,et al.  Diurnal variability of aerosol optical depth observed at AERONET (Aerosol Robotic Network) sites , 2002 .

[21]  M. Herman,et al.  Retrieval of the scattering and microphysical properties of aerosols from ground-based optical measurements including polarization. I. Method. , 2000, Applied optics.