Aerosol and Cloud Remote Sensing

Dear Colleauges,

Remote sensing aerosols, clouds, and aerosol–cloud interactions is a hot topic of modern atmospheric remote sensing studies. Both aerosols and clouds influence climate and weather. Their properties could change with time, leading to planetary energy imbalance on a global scale. For instance, recent studies show that there is a change in aerosol load (decrease/increase) on a decadal scale in several places worldwide. The same is true for cloud properties including cloud altitudes.

Optical and thermal infrared remote sensing of aerosols and clouds is a mature research field with a long history. Great progress has been achieved (especially in the last 40 years) using both ground-based and satellite instrumentation. The main parameters of interest are aerosol/cloud optical and microphysical properties, concentration, and aerosol/cloud geometrical characteristics (e.g., the altitudes, thickness and spatial extent). Aerosol–cloud interactions have been heavily studied as well; however, more research is needed in this area. In particular, new fast codes for the solution of the inverse problem, based on the multi-angular light intensity and polarization measurements, must be developed and applied to the satellite measurements on a global scale including real-time operational retrievals. This is of special importance for studies of natural hazards such as dust storms, hurricanes, wild fires, volcanic explosions and technological catastrophes with ejection of aerosol particles (e.g., soot) in the atmosphere at various heights.

This Special Issue is aimed at the presentation of recent results in ground-based and satellite remote sensing of aerosols and clouds, including validation of retrievals based on independent measurements.

Dr. Alexander A. Kokhanovsky
Guest Editor

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