An Aerosol Extinction Coefficient Retrieval Method and Characteristics Analysis of Landscape Images

Abstract

Images based on RGB pixel values were used to measure the extinction coefficient of aerosols suspended in an atmospheric state. The pixel values of the object-image depend on the target-object reflection ratio, reflection direction, object type, distances, illumination intensity, atmospheric particle extinction coefficient, and scattering angle between the sun and the optical axes of the camera, among others. Therefore, the imaged intensity cannot directly provide information on the aerosol concentration or aerosol extinction coefficient. This study proposes simple methods to solve this problem, which yield reasonable extinction coefficients at the three effective RGB wavelengths. Aerosol size information was analogized using the RGB Ångström exponent measured at the three wavelengths for clean, dusty, rainy, Asian dust storm, and foggy days. Additionally, long-term measurements over four months showed reasonable values compared with existing PM2.5 measurements and the proposed method yields useful results.