SBIR-STTR Award

Haze layers appear as anomalous patterns on satellite imagery and are viewed as noise by most researchers. Only over oceans, where there is a consistent radiation background, have efforts to measure haze layers proven successful. The few available point measurements of turbidity and aerosols of haze layers do not provide sufficient information to develop methods for measuring haze layers over land. Evaporation research has shown that the amount of evaporation from water surfaces expected on clear days is reduced when haze layers occur. The amount of reduction is related to the intensity of the haze layers. The Central Valley of California is an area where this effect is very pronounced. Pan evaporation records in the Central Valley will be used to infer the areal extent and density of haze layers. These estimates will be used as surrogate haze layer data to develop a method to use remote radiation measurements to measure haze layers over the valley. An image processing laboratory equipped to interactively process, display, analyze, interpret, and develop relations among imagery and mapped information will be used in the study.The potential commercial application as described by the awardee: The research results will have direct use for agriculture, water resources and industries dependent on solar energy. Other uses include use with remote sensing investigations and as input for long-range atmospheric modeling and air pollution studies. The method could help provide for development of a method to monitor haze layers in real time. Hydex Corporation is a consulting engineering firm specializing in hydrometeorology and the application of hydrometeorological data to solve practical engineering problems.

The objectives of this research include improvement of the correlation between atmospheric spectral data and the haze index, and determination of the temporal and spatial variations of haze layers as steps toward being able to map them. The San Joaquin River Basin has been selected as the site for this study because of its large variations in climate and evaporation, high occurance of haze, and ready availability of information and data relating to the variability and composition of haze. Results of this project may be directly applicable to land and water resource management and in conduct of atmospheric modeling and studies of air pollution.