Sand and Dust Storms (SDS) blow up from arid or semi-arid region of China and Mongolia and are transported over the Korean Peninsula through westerly winds. It is a significant impact on the atmospheric radiation budget as well as causing societal and economical problems because of large amount of dust. However, we have a limited knowledge of the distributions and the physical, optical and hyper-spectral properties of SDS although many study have been carried out by many researchers. Thus an intensive observational experiment was conducted to understand the hyper-spectral properties related to the size distributions, components, and altitude of the SDS.

The dust observation has been performed at the Korea Global Atmosphere Watch Center (KGAW) in Anmyeon from early March to middle of May, 2007. In order to understand hyper-spectral properties of SDS, downward radiance was measured by using ground-based FT-IR and got upward radiance from AIRS/Aqua satellite when SDS break out. And radiosondes, “Micro Pulse Lidar” (MPL), and “Optical Particle Counter” (OPC) are used to measure for vertical profiles of temperature, relative humidity, altitude of dust layer, and aerosol properties. Also, radiative transfer model simulation has been carried out to estimate the effects of size distribution, refractive index, and altitude of SDS over the high resolution infrared spectrum in the range of 500-1500 cm-1 with a line-by-line radiative transfer model (Kyungpook National University, KNU-LBL) and compared them with FT-IR and AIRS/Aqua observing data.

The comparison results show that each case (clear sky, fog, low- and high-level cloud, dust outbreak) has large discrepancy on absorption and emission lines of spectrum. Also calculated spectrum was different from measured spectrum due to limited input in the simulation. The hyper-spectral characteristics should be carefully calculated and the optical properties of each particles and surface type to understand of the real atmosphere should be collected with caution. In the future, an effective forward radiative transfer model should be implemented properly to understand the hyper-spectral characteristics. For this purpose, more sensitivity tests are needed for the different surface type, temperature, and humidity profiles because those are significantly affect on magnitude for the hyper-spectral properties. And then a valid model should be developed to describe composition, size distribution, and vertical profile for the aerosols and clouds in real atmosphere due to limited information in OPAC.