Aerosol Optics: Light Absorption and Scattering by Particles in the Atmosphere (Environmental Sciences)

Springer/Praxis have a successful mini program of books on various aspects of light scattering, and now have a journal "Light Scattering Review" under consideration proposed by Alex Kokhanovsky. The atmospheric air contains not only gases but also various types of airborne particles (known as aerosols) ranging from dust grains to microbes. These small particles influence atmospheric visibility, the thermodynamics of the atmosphere, and they are also of great importance in any consideration of climate change problems. Aerosols may also be responsible for the loss of harvest, health problems among humans and ecological disasters. Therefore, it is of great importance to study aerosol properties on a global scale. Such studies ultimately should be based on global observations using instruments positioned on the space platforms.

In Aerosol Optics, Alexander Kokhanovsky provides a comprehensive review of available techniques for the remote sensing of aerosols. Although mostly satellite remote sensing is considered, ground-based techniques are also discussed. The work is founded on the solid basis of radiative transfer theory, coupled with Maxwell theory for the calculation of the scattering properties of small particles. IN particular, the author describes techniques for the determination of the column concentration of aerosol particles and their optical sizing using spaceborne optical instrumentation. The majority of the techniques described in this book use a so-called "library method". This method relies upon the precalculated top-of-atmosphere reflectances (TOAR) for vaious atmospheric aerosol types. The comparison of measured and calculated  TOARS allows one to characterize the optically-equivalent aerosol state.