Advancing Littoral Zone Aerosol Prediction via Holistic Studies in Regime-Dependent Flows

The land/sea interface presents a uniquely complex environment with observational and predictive challenges. In particular, the diverse and ephemeral nature of the littoral zone presents significant complications for visibility and electromagnetic propagation. These difficulties arise from littoral zone's profusion of discontinuities which significantly complicate efforts at characterization of the littoral atmosphere through remote sensing and modeling efforts. Here we present an overview of the first year of a five-year Multi-University Research Initiative (MURI) funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) to observe, retrieve, assimilate, model, and understand aerosols in the littoral zone. From a remote sensing perspective, this project is focused on development of new remote sensing techniques and extension of current aerosol retrieval algorithms into the extremely difficult coastal regions where changes are rapid, frequent, spatially complex, and are caused by a myriad of different processes.