The progress and prospect of Remote Sensing for aerosol optical depth

The aerosol optical depth (AOD) which is an important physical parameter to attribute the atmospheric turbidity is presented in this paper. It can be used to reflect the air pollution concentration. High resolution Remote Sensing Images can be applied to estimate the AOD, which are capable to reflect the concrete distribution and the changing trend. MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer), with hierarchical date format, abundant information, quickly acquiring date and wide range of coverage date, has been widely used on observing the aerosol. It is important in application to get the macroscopic and continuous AOD; it has become a popular topic in the aerosol research and the global climate change study. In this paper the authors state the AOD retrieval algorithms, and give a review of national current status, and prospect the future work.