Optimization of Aerosol Model Selection for TROPOMI/S5P

Abstract

To retrieve aerosol properties from satellite measurements, micro-physical aerosol models have to be assumed. Due to the spatial and temporal inhomogeneity of aerosols, choosing an appropriate aerosol model is an important task. In this paper, we use a Bayesian algorithm that takes into account model uncertainties to retrieve the aerosol optical depth and layer height from synthetic and real TROPOMI O2A band measurements. The results show that in case of insufficient information for an appropriate micro-physical model selection, the Bayesian algorithm improves the accuracy of the solution.

Keywords

• model selection
• aerosol retrievals
• TROPOMI/S5P