Validation of OMI Total Column Water Vapor Product
Abstract. The Collection 3 OMI Total Column Water Vapor (TCWV) data generated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO)’s algorithm Version 1.0.0 and archived at the Aura Validation Data Center (AVDC) are compared with NCAR’s ground-based GPS data, AERONET sunphotometer data and Remote Sensing System’s SSM/I data. Results show that the OMI data track the seasonal and interannual variability of TCWV for a wide range of climate regimes. During the period from 2005 to 2009, the mean (OMI – GPS) over land is −0.3 mm, the mean (OMI – AERONET) over land is 0 mm, and the mean (OMI – SSM/I) over the ocean is −4.3 mm. The better agreement over land than over the ocean is corroborated by the smaller fitting residuals over land and suggests that liquid water is a key factor for the fitting quality over the ocean in the Version 1.0.0 retrieval algorithm. We find that the influence of liquid water is reduced using a shorter retrieval window. As a result, the TCWV retrieved with the new algorithm increases significantly over the ocean and only slightly over land, improving the land/ocean consistency and the overall quality of whole OMI TCWV dataset.