Influence of atmospheric aerosol characterization on satellite remote sensing of water quality parameters

Abstract

Changes in the atmospheric aerosol composition affect the amount of radiation that reaches the surface and consequently the energy budget between atmosphere and Earth. The study of surface water properties from satellite remote sensing techniques requires the correction of the atmospheric effects. In this work the influence of aerosol optical thickness and aerosol type are tested varying the aerosol characteristics in the radiative transfer calculations to determine atmospherically corrected satellite spectral reflectance. The impact of these variations is then assessed through comparisons of the water quality parameters derived using empirical algorithms under different atmospheric aerosol conditions.