• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.1-15
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• 2002

Atmospheric aerosols interact with sunlight and affect the global radiation balance that can cause climate change through direct and indirect radiative forcing. Because of the spatial and temporal uncertainty of aerosols in atmosphere, aerosol characteristics are not considered through GCMs (General Circulation Model). Therefor it is important physical and optical characteristics should be evaluated to assess climate change and radiative effect by atmospheric aerosols. In this study GMS-5 satellite data and surface measurement data were analyzed using a radiative transfer model for the Yellow Sand event of April 7~8, 2000 in order to investigate the atmospheric radiative effects of Yellow Sand aerosols, MODTRAN3 simulation results enable to inform the relation between satellite channel albedo and aerosol optical thickness(AOT). From this relation AOT was retreived from GMS-5 visible channel. The variance observations of satellite images enable remote sensing of the Yellow Sand particles. Back trajectory analysis was performed to track the air mass from the Gobi desert passing through Korean peninsular with high AOT value measured by ground based measurement. The comparison GMS-5 AOT to ground measured RSR aerosol optical depth(AOD) show that for Yellow Sand aerosols, the albedo measured over ocean surfaces can be used to obtain the aerosol optical thickness using appropriate aerosol model within an error of about 10%. In addition, LIDAR network measurements and backward trajectory model showed characteristics and appearance of Yellow Sand during Yellow Sand events. These data will be good supporting for monitoring of Yellow Sand aerosols.