Classification of Atmospheric Aerosols by Using polarized Phase Function of Polarized Sun-Photometer Measurements

Classification of atmospheric aerosols is one of the important topics in the airborne and ground-based instruments remote sensing. Polarized sky radiance resulting from interaction between sunlight and atmospheric particles strongly depends on the presenceof aerosols in the atmosphere, and can be monitored by looking at the aerosol polarized phase function. In this paper, the ability the polarized phase function to classify atmospheric aerosols has been investigated for the atmosphere of the Zanjan. To do this, aerosol optical depth (AOD), Angstrom exponent (α), single scattering albedo (SSA), and polarized phase function have been retrieved from the measurements of SPM in the period of February 2010 to December 2012. The results show that the maximum valueof aerosol polarized phase function is strongly correlated (R = 0.95) with the Angstrom exponent. Furthermore the polarized phase function shows a moderate negative correlation with respect to the atmospheric aerosol optical depth and single-scattering albedo (R =−0.76 and−0.33, respectively). Therefore the polarized phase function can be regarded as a key parameter to characterize the atmospheric particles of the region –a populated city in the semi-arid area and surrounded by some dust sources of the Earth’s dust belt.