Background information and a summary of a critical discussion that took place in a workshop devoted to this topic is given in this introductory paper. In the discussion it was concluded that the anticipated remote sensing of aerosol simultaneously from several space platforms with different observation strategies, together with continuous validations around the world is expected to be of significant importance to test remote sensing approaches to characterize the complex and highly variable aerosol field. So far we have only partial understanding of the information content and accuracy of the radiative transfer inversion of aerosol information from the satellite data, due to lack of sufficient theoretical analysis and applications to proper field data. This limitation will make the anticipated new data even more interesting and challenging. Main concern is the present inadequate ability to sense aerosol absorption, from space or from the ground.
Absorption is a critical parameter for climate studies and atmospheric corrections.
Over oceans, main concerns are the effects of white caps and dust on the correction scheme. Future improvement in aerosol retrieval and atmospheric corrections will require better climatology of the aerosol properties and understanding of the effects of mixed composition and shape of the particles. The main ingredient missing in the planned remote sensing of aerosol are space borne and ground based lidar observations of the aerosol profiles.