APPLICATION OF A PHYSICAL MODEL TO THE REMOTE SENSING OF PM2.5 OVER SINGAPORE

Regional trans-boundary biomass burning activity in South-East Asia is routinely monitored via ground PM2.5 sampling devices. In Singapore for example, the National Environment Agency host an array of tens of PM2.5 samplers distributed island wide, such array provides hourly and daily averages of PM10/2.5 concentrations at near real time and at a good spatial resolution. However, in other neighboring countries, such an array of samplers are impossible to deploy due to its vast geographical landscape and prohibitive economic cost. Hence, a satellite based monitoring of PM2.5 can be of great help as it has the capability to cover the entire region. Unfortunately satellite products do not include a PM2.5 product as such but its close proxy, the so called aerosol optical depth (AOD). Unfortunately the spatial and temporal dependency of PM2.5/AOD makes it challenging to find optimal correlations for these two parameters specially over the tropics. In this work, we present an initial 2year analysis of measured PM2.5, photometric AOD (AERONET), and PBL height (MPLNET) as well as meteorological % RH collected at Singapore. Our analysis is based on the assumption that a linear relationship between measured PM2.5 and photometric AOD can be found. To increase co-relation accuracy, appropriate corrections are made for atmospheric %RH and variability of the PBL height.