Critical review of aerosol optical thickness estimation with satellite data

With a data set of aerosol optical thickness derived from ground sunphotometers measurements on some sites in West Africa, the author evaluates some models devoted to the retrieval of aerosol optical thickness from remotely sensed radiances. This evaluation focuses on the potential of the satellite data for the monitoring of the aerosol optical thickness over land and sea on a global or at least regional scale. None of the studied methods appears strong enough for this purpose because their requirements are to hard to meet and thus highly limiting.>