Photopolarimetry Measurements of Aerosols (NASA/GISS)

[Source: NASA GISS] The NASA GISS Research Scanning Polarimeter (RSP) is a passive, downward-facing polarimeter that makes total radiance and linear polarization measurements in nine spectral bands ranging from the visible/near-infrared (VNIR) to the shortwave infrared (SWIR). The band centers are: 410 (30), 470 (20), 550 (20), 670 (20), 865 (20), 960 (20), 1590 (60), 1880 (90) and 2250 (130) nm where the full width at half maximum (FWHM) bandwidths of each channel is shown in parenthesis. Noise is minimized in the SWIR channels by cooling the detectors to less than 165K using a dewar of liquid nitrogen. The RSP measures the degree of linear polarization (DoLP) with an uncertainty of < 0.2%. The polarimetric and radiometric intensity measurement uncertainties are each < 3%. A full set of RSP's design parameters are shown in Table 1 and more details on design and calibration can be found in Cairns et al. (1999) and Cairns et al. (2003).