Retrieval of the Aerosol Scale Height Over the Ocean Based on Near-Infrared Multiangle Polarization Measurements

Multiangle polarization measurements in the near-infrared band from space were illustrated as suitable for the inversion of aerosol vertical distribution (AVD) information. In this study, we reported the interference of the AVD to linearly polarized radiances ( rho(Q )and rho(U) ) and scalar radiance ( rho(I) ) under different simulation configurations, and the sensitivity discrepancies of rho(I), rho(Q), and rho(U) to the aerosol scale height were analyzed by theoretical calculation of Mie scattering theory. Furthermore, the high correlation between polarization measurements in the near-infrared band and AVD inspired to perform polarization measurement inversion of the aerosol layer height (ALH). The constructed model was based on nonlinear optimization and the total-absorption ocean assumption. By fitting the linearly polarized radiances obtained by polarization observations in the near-infrared band, the AVD information were retrieved. The evaluation indicators showed that the root mean square error (RMSE) of the retrievals is less than 1 km for three typical sea areas, which demonstrates that polarization inversion is a valuable addition to light dectection and ranging (Lidar) data for AVD measurement.