Remote Study of the Earth Stratospheric Aerosol

Changes in the Earth's climate are mainly caused by disruptions in the energy balance of the Sun-Earth system. This process is the result of natural changes and the influence of anthropogenic factors. Their cumulative effect leads to a decrease in the thickness of the ozone layer, the global warming and other cataclysms on the planet. To study of the stratospheric aerosol the Main Astronomical Observatory of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine proposed to conduct a satellite polarimetric experiment in the ultraviolet (UV) spectrum range to obtain information on the physical properties of the aerosol for the results of polarimetric and photometric sky measurements. MAO NAS of Ukraine, the National Technical University of Ukraine "KPI" and L'viv Polytechnic National University have developed and created a miniature UV polarimeter (UVP). The proposed method allows to cut off the influence of the tropospheric component of the atmosphere and the Earth's surface and to select for the study only the polarization component of the stratospheric aerosol. To carry out ground-based polarization observations of a cloudless sky a modification of previous model of UVP were carried out on the AZT-2 telescope in the Main Astronomical Observatory. That is, even such an approximate analysis of ground-based polarization observations of a cloudless sky during the day and after sunset make it possible to study the physical characteristics of the aerosol in the troposphere and stratosphere.