AEROCAN Innovations
- 2012-graphical web innovations: Work continues on QA tools to allow researchers to timely identify issues with the sunphotometer network as well as select periods of interest for further study. These tools include an interactive graphing tool which allows comparisons of optical depth from different stations across the country, a Pan-Canada view of the sites across the network and new Matlab procedures to extract and analyze the data. These tools have been developed to complement tools available through AERONET.
- 2010-real time web updates: Provided real time updates on the web using an AERONET lite processing algorithm. Data is updated every 15 minutes, with the objective to provide inputs to real-time data assimilation models.
- 2010-semantic data transformations: Semantically enabled portions of the AEROCAN dataset using RDF (Resource Description Framework) to promote the concept of Actionable Data (Freemantle et al., 2012; Freemantle et al., 2011; Freemantle et al., 2010). By actionable we mean the transformation of science or technical data into a form that policy makers can use to make decisions. Applications can access the dataset programmatically and therefore can be used to automatically extract information, for example to send an alert via an e-mail or sms text if a data value is above a certain threshold. This work supported by a CFCAS Grant.
- 2009-actionable data for social media: Developed various software tools to increase the reliability of the AEROCAN network, targeting operational awareness as a means to increase “uptime” of the network. Created a RSS feed and used twitter to send telemetry updates to selected researchers in order to test usefulness of these output products (Freemantle et al., 2009). These technologies have more recently been referred to as “Social Media” but are well suited to more technical uses. This approach uses a push rather than pull strategy.
- 2008-coherent comparison of lidar and sunphotometry data: Start of an intensive and unique program for comparing hlidar profiles with high frequency lidar data at Eureka (O’Neill et al. 2008a). The program was unique in that we are unaware of other process level comparisons of this nature. The work was substantially aided by the high quality of the lidar, a high spectral resolution lidar developed by Ed Eloranta at the University of Wisconsin.
- 2008-FMC (Fine Mode Curvature algorithm): AEROCAN developed an algorithm for transforming SDA outputs to an indicator of fine mode particle size (O’Neill et al., 2008b). We are being encouraged to add these outputs to Version 3 AERONET products.
- 2008-SDA+ (Spectral Deconvolution Algorithm applied to near IR data): This method allowed for the extraction of an Angstrom exponent at the CIMEL channel of 1.64 um and an estimate of coarse particle size (O’Neill et al., 2008c).
- 2007-high frequency mode: Encouraged the sunphotometer manufacturer CIMEL to implement a high frequency measurement mode, dubbed the “O’Neill mode”, to measure AOD as frequently as every 3 minutes. Measuring at a higher frequency increases the likelihood of getting AOD measurements in partly cloudy conditions and helps in comparisons with other instruments. This high frequency mode results in greater data volumes. This is not a problem for the AEROCAN network since we upload data via ftp.
- 2007-Google interfaces: Introduced alternative interfaces to AEROCAN data such as Google Earth.
- 2007-CIMEL wiki: After discussions with other CIMEL Sunphotometer users at the 3rd AEROCAN Workshop held in St. John’s Newfoundland, May 2007 created the CIMEL Wiki site for users to share information about operational issues.
- 2006-ScienceNet: Using retired instruments, AEROCAN created a pool of CIMEL sunphotometers that could be used for Ad-hoc experiments. These experiments included Satellite validation and trans-border air quality studies as well as atmospheric corrections support for the surface remote sensing community. The instruments could be at a fixed location or mobile sites. ScienceNet data does not appear in the AERONET database: rather this resource allows AEROCAN site hosting institutions the option of using one of the pool instruments instead of disrupting the AEROCAN network by taking their instrument offline for the experiment.
- 2005-ac power and web transfer: In order to adapt to the harsh requirements of the Canadian Climate, we modified the AERONET data collection methodologies to eliminate the solar panels and satellite transmitter. Providing AC power and data uploads via the Internet increased the reliability of the AEROCAN network (Freemantle et al., 2005).
- 2003-SDA (Spectral Deconvolution Algorithm): Developed Algorithm for separating aerosols into fine and coarse mode components (O’Neill et al., 2003). This algorithm is employed in AERONET processing and was recently promoted to Level 2 status. One of the most useful applications of the SDA (as well as the FMC and SDA+ algorithms developed later) is to extract size related retrievals that are commensurate in sampling frequency to lidar profile sampling rates as well as the natural time scale of turbidity variations in the PBL ( minutes given the AEROCAN high-frequency mode).
- 2002-web service for atmospheric corrections: Provision of Aerosol Optical Depths via a web-service for automatic atmospheric correction of airborne and satellite imagery (Freemantle et al., 2002; O’Neill et al., 2002). The availability of AOD data for atmospheric corrections of surface remote sensing imagery represents a potentially very large market for AEROCAN derived products ; a potential that remains largely untapped, except for occasional campaign type applications using ScienceNet resources (in point for fact, the birth of AEROCAN came about because of a donation of 4 CIMELS to the Université de Sherbrooke by the Canada Center for Remote Sensing : the mandate of those early CIMELs was to have been as support for atmospheric corrections of surface imagery).
References
- Freemantle, J., N. T. O'Neill, I. Lumb, I. Abboud, “Enabling your Metadata for the Semantic Web: A Case Study using AEROCAN Sunphotometer Data”, Presented at 33rd Canadian Symposium on Remote Sensing, Ottawa, Ont. June 11-14, 2012.
- Freemantle, J., N. T. O'Neill, I. Lumb, J. McConnell, A. Lepu, I. Abboud, B. McArthur, “Creating Actionable Air Quality Data using RDF (Resource Description Framework)”, Presented at CMOS 45th Congress, Victoria, BC. June 2011.
- Freemantle, J., N. T. O’Neill, A. Mileevsky, I. Lumb, J. McConnell, B. McArthur, I. Abboud, “Creating Actionable Data from an Optical Depth Measurement Network using RDF”, (Poster) 2010 AGU Fall Meeting, Dec 13-17, 2010.
- Freemantle, J., O'Neill, N. T., A. Royer, L. J. B. McArthur, I. Abboud. “Software tools to monitor a real time sunphotometer network”, (poster) CMOS Congress, Halifax, NS, May 31-June 4, 2009.
- Freemantle, J., N. O’Neill, A. Royer, B. McArthur, I. Abboud. “AEROCAN: the Canadian Sunphotometer Network”, IEEE Workshop on Remote Sensing of Atmospheric Aerosols, April 5-6, 2005.
- Freemantle, J., M. Versi, N. T. O'Neill, A. Royer, M. Aubé, S. Thulasiraman, F. Vachon, P. M. Teillet, J-P Blanchet, and S. Gong. “Using Web Services for Atmospheric Correction of Remote Sensing Data”, Proceedings IGARSS 2002, 24th Canadian Remote Sensing Symposium, June 2002.
- O'Neill, N. T., O. Pancrati, K. Baibakov, E Eloranta, R. L. Batchelor, J. Freemantle, L. J. B. McArthur, K. Strong, and R. Lindenmaier, Occurrence of weak, sub-micron, tropospheric aerosol events at high Arctic latitudes, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L14814, doi:10.1029/2008GL033733, 2008a.
- O'Neill, N. T., Comment on the paper "Classification of aerosol properties derived from AERONET direct sun data" by G. P. Gobbi et al. (2007), Atmos. Chem. Phys., 9, 175–182, 2008b.
- O'Neill, N. T., T.F. Eck, Reid, J. S, Smirnov, A., O. Pancrati, Coarse mode optical information retrievable using ultraviolet to shortwave infrared sunphotometry; application to UAE2, Jour. Geophys. Res.,113, D05212, doi:10.1029/2007JD009052, 2008c.
- O'Neill, N. T.,T. F., Eck, A. Smirnov, B. N.Holben, S. Thulasiraman, Spectral discrimination of coarse and fine mode optical depth, Vol.. 108, J. Geophys. Res., No. D17, 4559-4573, 10.1029/2002JD002975, 2003.
- O'Neill, N. T., A. Royer, M. Aubé, S. Thulasiraman, F. Vachon, P. M. Teillet, J. Freemantle, J-P. Blanchet, and S. Gong. “Atmospheric Optical Parameter Server for Atmospheric Corrections of Remote Sensing Data”, Proceedings IGARSS 2002, 24th Canadian Remote Sensing Symposium, June 2002.
