Factors Relating Surface Visibility to the Total Optical Depth in the Marine Regime.

Abstract

This report describes same preliminary results of an effort to relate total aerosol optical depth at visible wavelengths to the visibility in the marine boundary layer (MBL). We present an atmospheric model which explains the observed height dependence of the aerosol extinction, examine aircraft and ship data from the MAGAT experiment, illustrate the influence of synoptic scale weather patterns on aerosol structure and present a simple model to relate alpha to total vertical depth. The ultimate goal of the project is to allow an estimation of IR ranges (due primarily to atmospheric water vapor density, Q) from satellite remote sensing data. A feasibility study on the concept was performed on two NPS data sets. (Author)

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 01, 1982
Accession Number
ADA117836

Entities

People

  • Christopher W. Fairall

Organizations

  • Braddock Dunn & McDonald

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircrafts
  • Boundaries
  • Boundary Layer
  • California
  • Coefficients
  • Data Sets
  • Extinction
  • Feasibility Studies
  • Humidity
  • Layers
  • Measurement
  • Mie Scattering
  • North Pacific Ocean
  • Oceans
  • Pacific Ocean
  • Research Facilities
  • Water Vapor

Fields of Study

  • Environmental science

Readers

  • Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Modeling, Data Assimilation, and Flux Boundary Layers
  • Spectroscopy.

Technology Areas

  • Space