Measurement : Optical depth

A measure of how much light airborne particles, whether aerosols, cloud droplets, or ice particles, prevent from passing through a column of atmosphere. This type includes gaseous absorption and scattering, and is the most general case. See _aerosol optical depth_ and _cloud optical depth_ for more specific cases.

Categories
Aerosols, Cloud Properties

Instruments

The above measurement is considered scientifically relevant for the following instruments. Refer to the datastream (netcdf) file headers of each instrument for a list of all available measurements, including those recorded for diagnostic or quality assurance purposes.

  • ARM Instruments
    • HSRL : High Spectral Resolution Lidar
    • MFRSR : Multifilter Rotating Shadowband Radiometer
    • NIMFR : Normal Incidence Multifilter Radiometer
  • External Instruments
    • GOES : Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites
  • Field Campaign Instruments
    • AOS-PMFOV : Acoustical Optical Spectrometer-Photometer with Multiple Fields of View
    • AOD : Aerosol Optical Depth, derived from MFRSR/NIMFR
    • AATS : Ames Airborne Tracking Sunphotometer
    • GOES : Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites
    • HSRL : High Spectral Resolution Lidar
    • MIRAI : JAMSTEC Research Vessel Mirai
    • MFRSR-WV1BARN : MFRSR Water-Vapor Barnard Algorithm
    • MPL-AIR : Micropulse Lidar- Airborne
    • LBTM-MINNIS : Minnis Cloud Products Using LBTM Algorithm
    • MFRSR : Multifilter Rotating Shadowband Radiometer
    • UAV-PROTEUS-MICRO : Proteus Cloud Microphysics Instruments
    • RLPROF : Raman LIDAR Vertical Profiles
    • SOAR : Shipboard Oceanographic and Atmospheric Radiation
    • SAM : Sun and Aureole Measurement
    • UAV-GNAT : UAV-General Atomics GNAT

Value-Added Products

  • LBTM-MINNIS : Minnis Cloud Products Using LBTM Algorithm (Process)
  • RLPROF : Raman LIDAR Vertical Profiles (Process)
    • 10RLPROFBE1NEWS : Raman LIDAR (RL): Best-estimate state of the atmospheric profiles from Raman Lidar
    • 10RLPROFBE1TURN : Raman LIDAR (RL): Best-estimate state of the atmos. profiles from RL & AERI+GOES retrievals
    • 1RLPROFEXT1FERR : 1-minute Raman Lidar: aerosol extinction profiles and aerosol optical thickness, from first Ferrare algorithm
    • 10RLPROFEXT1FERR : 10-minute Raman Lidar: aerosol extinction profiles and aerosol optical thickness, from first Ferrare algorithm
  • AOD : Aerosol Optical Depth, derived from MFRSR/NIMFR (Process)
    • MFRSRAOD1MICH : MFRSR: derived total & aerosol optical depth from 1st Michalsky algorithm
    • NIMFRAOD1MICH : NIMFR: derived total & aerosol optical depth from 1st Michalsky algorithm