1. Ground-based aerosol measurements update: AERONET, MPLNET, SMART-COMMIT
Operational Status
Science Results
Future Plans
Issues ??
Brent Holben, Judd Welton, Si-Chee Tsay

3. AERONET Status Provide a long term data set to:
Characterize aerosol optical properties
Validate Satellite & model aerosol retrievals
Synergism with Satellite obs., models sfc net
321 instruments
~ Operational sites
Network Partners
GSFC
Photons (France)
RIMA (Spain)
CSIRO (Australia)
AEROCAN (Canada)
Expansion to Asia, Africa, high latitudes and over water sites

4. AERONET support for Field Campaigns
East AIRE-east China
Base Asia-Thailand
Milagro-Mexico
AMMA-W. Africa
ABC- Pacific, Indian Oceans, East Asia
ARM sites
RAJO-MEGHA: Indo-Gangenic Plain (2007)
JAMEX: Asian Monsoon ( )
Seven Seas-S. Asia and SE Asia (2008?)
International Polar Year

5. AERONET Inversion: Ver. 2.0
Unified Inversion products from combined Sphere/Spheroid models
Dynamic surface reflectances
MODIS & IGBP Ecosystem reflectance (16 day product) + generic BRDF
Cox-Munk for ocean sites (hybrid for coastal sites)
Snow and Ice from NISE product (daily)
Forcing computations
Uncertainty Assessment w/ all products
Inversion Products for PP retrievals

6. AERONET-OC (Ocean Color)
SeaPRISM (cimel)
Normalized water leaving radiances (Lwn)➨ QA
Ship based AOD network
Class 1 & 2 waters
Ocean transects
Coastal Cruises

7. AERONET Science Aerosol Characterization Algorithm Development
AOD
Retrievals
Validation
Synergism
Significant Enabling:
‘AERONET Paper’- 605
citations since 1998,
113 citations in 2006
Staff citations of 4 key
AERONET papers since
2000: 765

8. AERONET Directions
Collaboration and co-location w/ other networks and observatories
Cloud Optical depth retrievals
Lunar Photometer
2008-new Sun-Sky system to be phased in
2008-CO2 network (±3ppm accuracy anticipated), collaboration w/Heaps and Georgieva
BAMGOMAS➔Synergy Tool
REASoN➔Measure for MEaSUREs
Linking site data sets ➔ESDRs

9. Overview & Status http://mplnet.gsfc.nasa.gov
Objective: Long-term, local - regional - worldwide aerosol and cloud profile observations
using common instrument & data processing in a federated network
Status:
11 active sites
7 planned sites (in preparation)
6 proposed sites (funding dependent)
12 short-term field campaigns
1 Ocean cruise (two cruises pre-dating MPLNET are available)
* Most sites are co-located with AERONET
* Campaigns utilize SMART-COMMIT and/or MAARCO platforms
Goddard team + 11 Partners compose MPLNET:
NASA LaRC
NOAA ESRL
Naval Research Lab - Monterey
Japan’s National Institute of Polar Research
Spain’s Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial - INTA
4 US Universities
2 Korean Universities
1 Taiwan University other partners pending
active sites
field campaigns
planned sites
proposed sites
former campaign, permanent site planned
former campaign, permanent site proposed
* line denotes research cruise

10. New MPLNET Products Coming Soon:
GSFC: 10/29/2005
Chiu et al., Cloud optical depth retrievals from solar background “signal” of micropulse lidars, Geosci. Rem. Sens. Lett., accepted, 2007.
Thick Cloud Optical
Depth Product
Stratus -- MPL blocked
Cloud Optical Depth
New MPLNET Products Coming Soon:
Aerosol
Level 2 (quality assured) extinction and Level 3 continuous extinction online
currently available offline only on request
level 2 products recently validated, error <20% (Schmid et al. 2006)
AERONET derived lidar ratio will be included in 1.5 & 2 products
Cirrus flag for AERONET AOD obs will be generated
Clouds
Multiple cloud height product under development
joint with Haeffelin et al. at LMD (STRAT algorithm)
includes thin cloud (cirrus) optical depth & PBL height
Thick cloud optical depth product will come on-line
Chiu & Marshak collaboration
see example in right panel
Polar Stratospheric Cloud Products
Campbell development during PhD
see example below
CALIPSO Validation: we will provide orbit subsets over each site to all partners
Campbell, J. R., Autonomous full-time lidar measurements of polar stratospheric clouds at the South Pole, Ph. D. dissertation, Atmospheric Sciences Program, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, 189 pp, 2006.
Polar Stratospheric Cloud Product

11. http://mplnet.gsfc.nasa.gov Other News Since the 2006 Aerosol Update:
Publications:
Chiu et al., Cloud optical depth retrievals from solar background “signal” of micropulse lidars, Geosci. Rem. Sens. Lett., accepted, 2007.
Campbell, J. R., Autonomous full-time lidar measurements of polar stratospheric clouds at the South Pole, Ph. D. dissertation, Atmospheric Sciences Program, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, 189 pp, 2006.
Kuzmanoski, M., et al., Aerosol properties computed from aircraft-based observations during the ACE-Asia campaign: 2. A case study of lidar ratio closure, Aerosol Sci. Tech., accepted, 2007.
M. Shiobara, et al., Arctic experiment for the ICESat/GLAS ground validation with a Micro-Pulse Lidar at Ny-Alesund, Svalbard, Polar Meteorol. Glaciology, 20, 28-39, 2007.
MPLNET will participate in the WMO sponsored Gaw Aerosol LIdar Observation Network (GALION) - an attempt at worldwide coordinated aerosol lidar measurements
1st implementation meeting is scheduled in Hamburg next month, whitepaper to be completed soon
Our website is being redesigned, and the new site will be public soon. The new synergy tool will be integrated into our website for expanded data browsing, and new data product search and download tools will be provided (including multi-month downloads).
MPLNET is funded by the NASA Radiation Sciences Program and the Earth Observing System.
Recently renewed for operations through 2010
MPLNET People:
Principal Investigator:
Judd Welton, NASA GSFC Code 613.1
Data Processing & Analysis:
James Campbell, University of Alaska - Fairbanks
Larry Belcher, UMBC GSFC Code 613.1
Instrumentation & Network Management:
Tim Berkoff, UMBC GSFC Code 613.1
Sebastian Stewart, SSAI GSFC Code 613.1
Sandra Valencia, recently left project for grad school
GLAS Validation Activities:
Jim Spinhirne, NASA GSFC Code 613.1
Judd Welton, Tim Berkoff
CALIPSO Validation Activities:
Judd Welton, Tim Berkoff, James Campbell, Ken Sassen
AERONET & Synergy Tool Partnership:
Brent Holben, NASA GSFC Code 614.4
Dave Giles, NASA GSFC Code 614.4
NASA SMART-COMMIT Field Deployments:
Si-Chee Tsay, NASA GSFC 613.2
Jack Ji, NASA GSFC 613.2
Site Operations & Science Investigations
…. many network partners around the world

12. SMART and COMMIT
Ground-based mobile laboratories armed with sophisticated instrumentation
Mission:
• Earth Observing System (EOS) validation
• Innovative investigations
• Long-term atmospheric monitoring
Field deployment:
Bring 50+ more instruments to an AERONET site and turn it into a super-site
Field Campaigns:
SCSMEX
EOPACE
DESIRE
PRIDE
SAFARI
ACE-ASIA
CRYSTAL-FACE
ARM AEROSOL IOP
UAE2
EAST-AIRE
BASE-ASIA, 2006
NAMMA, 2006
AERONET

14. Create dynamic Earth System Data Records over ground-based sites
Measure for MEaSUREs:
Create dynamic Earth System Data
Records over ground-based sites
Ground-based data sets
Multi-Satellite Aerosol products
Assimilation aerosol products
MODIS surface albedos
Retrieved surface albedos from joint inversion
Ancillary products:
Backtrajectories
0 Hr Met forecasts