Anthropogenic aerosol emissions mapping and characterization by imaging spectroscopy – application to a metallurgical industry and a petrochemical complex

ABSTRACT

This paper is focused on the retrieval of industrial aerosol optical thickness (AOT) and microphysical properties by means of airborne imaging spectroscopy. Industrial emissions generally lead to optically thin plumes requiring an adapted detection method taking into account the weak proportion of particles sought in the atmosphere. To this end, a semi-analytical model combined with the Cluster-Tuned Matched Filter (CTMF) algorithm is presented to characterize those plumes, requiring the knowledge of the soil under the plume. The model allows the direct computation of the at-sensor radiance when a plume is included in the radiative transfer. When applied to industrial aerosol classes as defined in this paper, simulated spectral radiances can be compared to ‘real’ MODTRAN (Moderate Resolution Atmospheric Transmission) radiances using the Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM). On the range from 0.4 to 0.7 µm, for three grounds (water, vegetation, and bright one), SAM scores are lower than 0.043 in the worst case (a both absorbing and scattering particle over a bright ground), and usually lower than 0.025. The darker the ground reflectance is, the more accurate the results are (typically for reflectance lower than 0.3). Concerning AOT retrieval capabilities, with a pre-calculated model for a reference optical thickness of 0.25, we are able to retrieve plume AOT at 550 nm in the range 0.0 to 0.4 with an error usually ranging between 9% and 13%. The first test case is a CASI (Compact Airborne Spectrographic Imager) image acquired over the metallurgical industry of Fos-sur-Mer (France). First results of the use of the model coupled with CTMF algorithm reveal a scattering aerosol plume with particle sizes increasing with the distance from the stack (from detection score of 54% near the stack for particles with a diameter of 0.1 µm, to 69% away from it for 1.0 µm particles). A refinement is made then to estimate more precisely aerosol plume properties, using a multimodal distribution based on the previous results. It leads to find a mixture of sulfate and brown carbon particles with a plume AOT ranging between 0.2 and 0.5. The second test case is an AHS (Airborne Hyperspectral Scanner) image acquired over the petrochemical site of Antwerp (Belgium). The first CTMF application results in detecting a brown carbon aerosol of 0.1 µm mode (detection score is 51%). Refined results show the evolution of the AOT decreasing from 0.15 to 0.05 along the plume for a mixture of brown carbon fine mode and 0.3 µm radius of sulfate aerosol.

Acknowledgments

The CASI data over Fos-sur-Mer were funding by European Facility for Airborne Research (EUFAR) for the transnational access project “ValCalHyp” with the support of NERC for the airborne data acquisition. The AHS data over the port of Antwerp was collected during the TIRIS project under the funding of the Belgian Science Policy, BELSPO contract # SR/20/075, and in collaboration with the Belgian Royal Military Academy.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.