Smoke over the western coast of Central America

Thu, 18 Apr 2024 11:03:15 -0400
aerosol, esi, harp2, pace, polarimeter

The image illustrates an instance of size-seperated aerosol optical depth obtained from HARP2 observations in low Earth orbit. This specific granule was captured on April 14, 2024. Using the GRASP inversion algorithm, aerosol optical depth was retrieved and separated based on particle size. Notably, the image shows smoke transport from Central America to the western coast, with fine-mode dominant particles (Particulate Matter- PM1, diameter less than 1 um). These snapshots represent the aerosol products the scientific community can anticipate from HARP2. Dr. Puthukkudy is currently developing an operational implementation of this algorithm for near-real-time aerosol and surface properties retrieval over land and ocean surfaces. Interested users can contact Dr. Puthukkudy at aputhukkudy@umbc.edu for beta testing these aerosol products. Stay tuned for additional sample cases.