COLUMNAR AEROSOL PROPERTIES OVER OCEANS BY COMBINING SURFACE AND AIRCRAFT MEASUREMENTS - SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS

We report a sensitivity analysis for the algorithm presented by Gordon and Zhang [Appl. Opt. 34, 5552 (1995)] for inverting the radiance exi ting the top and bottom of the atmosphere to yield the aerosol-scatter ing phase function [P(Theta)] and single-scattering albedo (omega(0)). The study of the algorithm's sensitivity to radiometric calibration e rrors, mean-zero instrument noise, sea surface roughness, the curvatur e of the Earth's atmosphere, the polarization of the light field, and incorrect assumptions regarding the vertical structure of the atmosphe re, indicates that the retrieved omega(0), has excellent stability eve n for very large values (similar to 2) of the aerosol optical thicknes s; however, the error in the retrieved P(Theta) strongly depends on th e measurement error and on the assumptions made in the retrieval algor ithm. The retrieved phase functions in the blue are usually poor compa red with those in the near infrared. (C) 1997 Optical Society of Ameri ca.