A handheld polarimeter for aerosol remote sensing

In this paper we show how measurements made by a simple handheld polarimeter in conjunction with automated sunsky radiometers can be used to effectively constrain the real part of the complex refractive index of aerosols. We find that even measurements over a limited angular range near 90° scattering angle are sufficient for this purpose. We also note that because of the effect of surface reflectance on the observed degree of linear polarization (DOLP) it is sensible to select spectral bands for these measurements for which the surface is relatively dark and homogeneous (i.e. wavelengths shorter than 700 nm are to be preferred)