The AERONET (AErosol RObotic NETwork) project is a federation of ground-based remote sensing aerosol networks established and supported by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and PHOTONS (PHOtométrie pour le Traitement Opérationnel de Normalisation Satellitaire), CNES and CNRS-INSU. The AERONET is also greatly expanded by other networks (e.g., RIMA, AeroSpan, AEROCAN, and CARSNET) and collaborators from national agencies, institutes, universities, individual scientists, and partners. For more than 25 years, the project has provided long-term, continuous and readily accessible public domain database of aerosol optical, microphysical and radiative properties for aerosol research and characterization, validation of satellite retrievals, and synergism with other databases. The network imposes standardization of instruments, calibration, processing and distribution.
AERONET collaboration provides globally distributed observations of spectral aerosol optical depth (AOD), inversion products such as aerosol size distribution, complex refractive index, fraction of non-spherical aerosol and other calculated aerosol scattering and absorption characteristics in diverse aerosol regimes, as well as precipitable water. The data are provided for three data quality levels: Level 1.0 (unscreened), Level 1.5 (cloud-screened and quality controlled), and Level 2.0 (quality-assured). Inversion and other AOD-dependent products are derived from these levels and may implement additional quality checks.
The instrument at Agia Marina Xyliatou CAO station was installed and started collecting data in May 2015. A second instrument has been operating at the Cyprus Institute main campus intermittently in 2015 and 2016, and consistently since early 2019.
