The developments of TOA reflectance assimilation for aerosols in JEDI

Aerosol optical depth (AOD) is the major satellite retrieval product that is assimilated to produce the aerosols analysis. The AOD retrieval algorithms, such as Dark Target and Deep Blue methods, mainly rely on measurements of the top of the atmosphere (TOA) reflectance and the prescribed aerosol optical properties. However, the underlying assumption on aerosol optical, chemical, and microphysical properties used in the retrieval algorithm and the corresponding definition used in aerosol models and forward operators could be different. This inconsistency could induce uncertainties and errors during the data assimilation. Therefore, we attempt to reduce the inconsistency of the optical properties between model and observation through the TOA reflectance assimilation. The developments, challenges, and preliminary results from the Joint Effort for Data assimilation Integration (JEDI) will be presented.