SIMULTANEOUS DETERMINATION OF AEROSOL SIZE DISTRIBUTION AND REFRACTIVE INDEX AND SURFACE ALBEDO FROM RADIANCE－PART I: THEORY

Analyzing in detail the dependence of sky radiance on aerosol optical property and surface albedo, we present a new method for simultaneous determination of aerosol size distribution, its wavelength-dependent refractive index and surface albedo. The aerosol scattering phase function near 10o, its weighted phase function near 40o introduced in this paper, which can be inferred from sky radiance data, and the radiance near 90o are respectively used in retrieving the real part of refractive index, its imaginary part and surface albedo. Results in numerical experiments are satisfactory under different given conditions.