Abstract. This study was designed to develop an efficient algorithm to retrieve aerosol characteristics in aerosol events, which are associated with dense concentrations of aerosols in the atmosphere, such as a dust storm or a biomass burning plume. The idea of successive scattering of light is reviewed based on the theory of radiative transfer. Then derivation of the method of successive order of scattering (MSOS) is interpreted in detail, and it is shown that MSOS is available for a simulation scheme in the dense radiation field being used to retrieve aerosol properties in the event with the high optical thickness. Finally our algorithms are practically applied for the biomass burning aerosol event over the Amazon using Aqua/MODIS data.