• The AERONET (AErosol RObotic NETwork) program is a federation of ground-based remote sensing aerosol networks established by NASA and LOA-PHOTONS (CNRS) and is greatly expanded by collaborators from

national agencies, institutes, universities, individual scientists, and partners. The program provides a long-term, continuous and readily accessible public domain

database of aerosol optical, microphysical and radiative properties for aerosol research and characterization,

validation of satellite retrievals, and synergism with other databases. The network imposes standardization of

instruments, calibration, processing and distribution.•

P.I. Brent Holben

COLLABORATORS

 

 

                        NASA Goddard Space Flight Center - USA

                                                                                                               

                      

Centre National De La Recherche Scientifique - FRANCE

                                                     

Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) - FRANCE

                      

Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) National Science Foundation (NSF) - USA

                        

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation - AUSTRALIA

                                                          Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program - USA

                                                                                   Joint Research Centre (JRC), European Union

Data Distribution 1993-2006

1994-22 Sites 1998- 78 Sites

2002- 162 Sites 2006- 192+ Sites

AERONET Inversion Products

Inverts sky radiances at all available spectral channels: 1020, 870, 675 and 440 nm for standard instruments plus 500 and 1640 nm for extended wavelength instruments. The radiances are measured in solar almucantar or principal plane scenario.

Inversion results:

Aerosol particles size distributioncomplex refractive indexphase functionsingle scattering albedo

And more…

Cimel Filter Wheel Sunphotometer with up to 9 filters: 1020, 870, 675, 440, 500, 940, 380 and 340 nm. (+1640nm in extended wavelength version)

Standard setup included:

Control box, sensor head, robot, 12V battery and 5W solar panel.

Data communication platform (DCP):Vitel or Satlink sattelite transmitter, 12V battery and 20W solar panel with charge regulator.

In automatic mode the sunphotometer perform direct sun measurements at all wavelength ~15min (start at airmass 7).~8 Almucantars and PPlanes ~ each hour from 9am – 3pm.

Each hour (GOES, METEOSAT and GMS – 30min) send ~ 1Kb of data.

Auxiliary measurements: Temperature inside sensor head, black current, battery voltage, operational errors (robot or sensor head malfunctions).

• Mount AERONET, GSFC calibration facility

• 20-30 instruments per month calibrated against 2 master instruments (> 50 instruments at peak month). Signal ratio of calibrated instrument and master within 2%. The master instruments swap out each 2-3 month and calibrated at MLO, Hawaii by Langley method.

AERONET calibration at MLO

• GSFC calibration facility: integrating sphere6’ or 3’ diameter, better than 5% accuracy.

• Calibration of sky channels (almucantars and PPlanes).

• Readiness for Tiksi

Cold weather modificationNew electronics in sensor head

Thermostat inside control box

(to keep LCD display alive),

Power supply instead battery and solar panels,

Automatic PC data download and

upload to AERONET Web site,

Where is Internet available.

Existing AERONET Arctic sites: Barrow and Bonanza Creek, Alaska, Hornsund Spitsbergen, Resolute Bay Canada (AEROCAN).

IPY: Thule Greenland, Eureka (AEROCAN) and Tiksi

Courtesy of

Dr. A. Smirnov

AEROSIBNETAEROSIBNETCourtesy of Dr. Mikhail Panchenko