Advancements for three-dimensional remote sensing of the atmosphere

Climate modeling efforts depend on remote sensing observations of clouds and aerosols in the atmosphere. This dissertation presents a foundation for using three-dimensional (3D) remote sensing techniques to retrieve cloud and aerosol properties in complex cloud fields. The initial research was aimed at establishing a set of single-scattering properties that could be used in subsequent 3D remote sensing applications. A theoretical stability analysis was used to evaluate what information about the particulate scattering material could be determined from in situ radiance and polarization measurements, and particle size and refractive index were retrieved from synthetic measurements with noise levels comparable to those of existing laboratory instruments. Subsequent research focused on the techniques necessary to retrieve 3D atmosphere and surface properties from images taken by an airborne or space-borne instrument. With the goal of using 3D retrieval methods to extend monitoring capabilities to regions with broken cloud fields, we formulated an efficient procedure for using codes that solve the 3D vector radiative transfer equation (VRTE) to adjust atmosphere and surface properties to fit multi-angle/multi-pixel polarimetric measurements of the atmosphere. Taken together, these two bodies of work contribute to ongoing research which focuses on developing new methods for retrieving aerosols in complex 3D cloud fields, and may extend monitoring capabilities to these currently unresolved scenes.