Retrieving the Height of Smoke and Dust Aerosols by Synergistic Use of Multiple Satellite Sensors

The Aerosol Single scattering albedo and Height Estimation (ASHE) algorithm was first introduced in Jeong and Hsu (2008) to provide aerosol layer height and single scattering albedo (SSA) for biomass burning smoke aerosols. By using multiple satellite sensors synergistically, ASHE can provide the height information over much broader areas than lidar observations alone. The complete ASHE algorithm uses aerosol data from MODIS or VIIRS, OMI or OMPS, and CALIOP. A simplified algorithm also exists that does not require CALIOP data as long as the SSA of the aerosol layer is provided by another source. Several updates have recently been made: inclusion of dust layers in the retrieval process, better determination of the input aerosol layer height from CALIOP, improvement in aerosol optical depth (AOD) for nonspherical dust, development of quality assurance (QA) procedure, etc.