Satellite measurement of mass of Sahara dust in the atmosphere

Abstract

The mass of particulates in a vertical column of dust outflow from northwestern Africa is derived with the aid of satellite measurements of nadir radiance. The measurements were made from the Landsat-1 satellite. Measurement accuracies are discussed. A radiative transfer model with a known mass of dust is developed to account for the measured radiance values. The model is constructed with knowledge of a few values of optical parameters measured from a surface ship. The accuracy of the model is discussed. The resulting mass of particulates smaller than 10-microm radius in a vertical column is 1.6 g m(-2).