Aerosol amounts and types are information of prime importance in the process of vicariously calibrating ocean color sensors observations (Sect. 10), yet they cannot be obtained easily on the mooring site. This is the main reason for having installed an automatic scanning sun and sky photometer at the “Cap Ferrat”, which is providing a continuous record (cloud permitting) of these parameters thanks to the logistics and data transmission capabilities of the AERONET^*.

Description of the site can be found here.

The parallel analysis of the data collected there and of the satellite observations themselves should indicate which are the situations where the data collected at the coast are representative of the conditions offshore. In support to this study, aerosol optical thickness measurements are also performed en route when steaming from Nice to the BOUSSOLE site, in order to get some idea of the spatial heterogeneity of the aerosol burden.

^*Further details about AERONET sites are available at the following Web address: http://aeronet.gsfc.nasa.gov