The July 27 issue of JGR-Atmosphere included a special issue on Passive remote sensing of tropospheric aerosol and atmospheric corrections. The special issue was written in connection to a workshop held in April 1996 to intercompare the design of such algorithms, as envisioned in the international scientific centers. There are also natural aerosol generated as dust from deserts, formed from emissions from volcanoes, from sea spray and from wild fires. Some of the dust is the result of change in land use practices due to expansion of population. Aerosol particles generate the haze that obscures visibility on the earth.
Same effect obscures observations of the earth surface from space and aircraft.
It results from the particles scattering and absorbing solar radiation. The interplay between aerosol and sunlight also affects climate in a way that partially may counteract greenhouse warming at least in the last century. The new satellite platforms and new techniques to analyze old data are designed to derive the global distribution of the aerosols, to determine the strength of their sources and their evolution in the atmosphere. It will also bring to sharper images of the surface from space.