Articles | Volume 18, issue 22
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-6705-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-6705-2025
Research article
 | 
18 Nov 2025
Research article |  | 18 Nov 2025

Estimation of nighttime aerosol optical depths using the ground-based microwave radiometer

Guanyu Liu, Jing Li, Sheng Yue, Lulu Zhang, and Chongzhao Zhang

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Cited articles

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Balmes, K. A., Fu, Q., and Thorsen, T. J.: The Diurnal Variation of the Aerosol Optical Depth at the ARM SGP Site, Earth and Space Science, 8, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021EA001852, 2021. 
Barreto, A., Cuevas, E., Damiri, B., Guirado, C., Berkoff, T., Berjón, A. J., Hernández, Y., Almansa, F., and Gil, M.: A new method for nocturnal aerosol measurements with a lunar photometer prototype, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 6, 585–598, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-6-585-2013, 2013. 
Barreto, Á., Cuevas, E., Granados-Muñoz, M.-J., Alados-Arboledas, L., Romero, P. M., Gröbner, J., Kouremeti, N., Almansa, A. F., Stone, T., Toledano, C., Román, R., Sorokin, M., Holben, B., Canini, M., and Yela, M.: The new sun-sky-lunar Cimel CE318-T multiband photometer – a comprehensive performance evaluation, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 9, 631–654, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-631-2016, 2016. 
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Short summary
This study introduces a novel method to retrieve aerosol optical depth (AOD) at night using ground-based microwave radiometers, overcoming the limitation of traditional shortwave-based techniques that cannot operate in darkness. This result enables continuous aerosol monitoring and highlights microwave radiometry's under-utilized potential in atmospheric research.
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