Adjacency effect in the atmospheric correction of satellite remote sensing data: Evaluation of the influence of aerosol extinction profiles

In atmospheric correction of satellite data in the visible and near-infrared bands, it is necessary to remove the adjacency effect due to the reflection from contiguous pixels. Evaluation of the influence of aerosol vertical distributions on the adjacency effect is done by calculating the single-scattering light intensity which, after the reflection at the ground surface, reaches the satellite sensor via a single scattering with a molecule or an aerosol particle. In the simulation, we assume aerosol vertical profiles similar to those used in the MODTRAN radiation transfer code, and those having a mixed layer with a uniform value of the aerosol extinction coefficient. We assume for the ground surface a simple model representing a border of land/sea surfaces. In spite of the single scattering approximation, it is confirmed that even if the optical thickness is the same, we have a larger adjacency effect when the extinction coefficient is large at higher altitudes. We also discuss the dependence of the adjacency effect on the aerosol optical thickness and that on the difference in the reflectances of the land and sea surfaces along the border.