Single scattering albedo (SSA) is a key variable to describe the aerosol absorption for solar radiation and also a critical metric for the climate impact. However, a great challenge is noticed from most spaceborne algorithms since satellite measured reflectances result from a convolved effect of aerosol loading and absorption, which is hardly differentiated and SSA can only be simply approximated depend on a few aerosol model candidates. This study is intended to propose an algorithm to obtain aerosol SSA indirectly from visible infrared imaging radiometer suite (VIIRS), developing a strategy to characterize the aerosol absorption of polluted plume over East Asia. A new parameterization scheme for aerosol models is proposed by optimizing the independent SSA values to the mixed combination of three basic components. Notable sensitivities mean that the updated aerosol assumptions work efficiently in the lookup table-based algorithm. The algorithm is less affected by the uncertainties of surface definitions and achieves reasonable SSA estimations under higher aerosol loadings conditions (AOD > 0.5). The comparison is encouraging that new SSA results have an expected correlation with those retrieved independently of ground-based sun photometers, especially for high aerosol loading SSA, with better correlations (0.603, 0.571, and 0.473 of R-2 at 440, 550, and 675 nm, respectively), lower mean biases (0.026, 0.030, and 0.042 at 440, 550, and 675 nm, respectively), and 85% of the retrievals fall within the 5% expected error (EE) envelope. The flexible SSA products will thus be more useful for characterizing aerosol absorption in pollution.
