Simultaneous retrieval of CO2 and aerosols in a plume from hyperspectral imagery: application to the characterization of forest fire smoke using AVIRIS data

Hyperspectral imagery is a widely used technique to study atmospheric composition. For several years, many methods have been developed to estimate the abundance of gases. However, existing methods do not simultaneously retrieve the properties of aerosols and often use standard aerosol models to describe the radiative impact of particles. This approach is not suited to the characterization of plumes, because plume particles may have a very different composition and size distribution from aerosols described by the standard models given by radiative transfer codes. This article presents a new method to simultaneously retrieve carbon dioxide (CO2) and aerosols inside a plume, combining an aerosol retrieval algorithm using visible and near-infrared (VNIR) wavelengths and a CO2 estimation algorithm using shortwave infrared (SWIR) wavelengths. The microphysical properties of the plume particles, obtained after aerosol retrieval, are used to calculate their optical properties in the SWIR. Then, a database of atmospheric terms is generated with the radiative transfer code, Moderate Resolution Atmospheric Transmission (MODTRAN). Finally, pixel radiances around the 2.0m absorption feature are used to retrieve the CO2 abundances. After conducting a signal sensitivity analysis, the method was applied to two airborne visible/infrared imaging spectrometer (AVIRIS) images acquired over areas of biomass burning. For the first image, in situ measurements were available. The results show that including the aerosol retrieval step before the CO2 estimation: (1) induces a better agreement between in situ measurements and retrieved CO2 abundances (the CO2 overestimation of about 15%, induced by neglecting aerosols has been corrected, especially for pixels where the plume is not very thick); (2) reduces the standard deviation of estimated CO2 abundance by a factor of four; and (3) causes the spatial distribution of retrieved concentrations to be coherent.