scholarly journals Tropospheric carbon monoxide variability from AIRS and IASI under clear and cloudy conditions

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 16337-16366 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Warner ◽  
F. Carminati ◽  
Z. Wei ◽  
W. Lahoz ◽  
J.-L. Attié

Abstract. We study the Carbon Monoxide (CO) variability in the last decade measured by NASA's Atmospheric InfraRed Sounder (AIRS) on the Earth Observing Systems (EOS)/Aqua satellite and Europe's Infrared Atmospheric Sounder Interferometer (IASI) on MetOp platform. The focus of this study is to analyze CO variability and short-term trends separately for background CO and new emissions based on a new statistical approach. The AIRS Level 2 (L2) retrieval algorithm, as well as the IASI products from NOAA, utilizes cloud clearing to treat cloud contaminations in the signals; and this increases the data coverage significantly to a yield of more than 50% of the total measurements (Susskind et al., 2003). We first study if the cloud clearing affects CO retrievals and the subsequent trend studies by using the collocated Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) (Ackerman et al., 1998) cloud mask to identify AIRS clear sky scenes. We then separate AIRS CO data into clear and cloud-cleared scenes and into background and new emissions, respectively. Furthermore, we carry out a similar study for the IASI CO and discuss the consistency with AIRS. We validate the CO variability of the emissions developed from AIRS against other emission inventory databases (i.e., Global Fire Emissions Database – GFED3 and the MACC/CityZEN UE – MACCity) and calculate that the correlation coefficients between the AIRS CO emissions and the emission inventory databases are 0.726 for the Northern Hemisphere (NH) and 0.915 for the Southern Hemisphere (SH).

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 12469-12479 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Warner ◽  
F. Carminati ◽  
Z. Wei ◽  
W. Lahoz ◽  
J.-L. Attié

Abstract. We study the carbon monoxide (CO) variability in the last decade measured by NASA's Atmospheric InfraRed Sounder (AIRS) on the Earth Observing System (EOS)/Aqua satellite. The focus of this study is to analyze CO variability and short-term trends separately for background CO and fresh CO emissions based on a new statistical approach. The AIRS Level 2 (L2) retrieval algorithm utilizes cloud clearing to treat cloud contaminations in the signals, and this increases the data coverage significantly to a yield of more than 50% of the total measurements. We first study if the cloud clearing affects CO retrievals and the subsequent trend studies by using the collocated Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) cloud mask to identify AIRS clear sky scenes. We then carry out a science analysis using AIRS CO data individually for the clear and cloud-cleared scenes to identify any potential effects due to cloud clearing. We also introduce a new technique to separate background and recently emitted CO observations, which aims to constrain emissions using only satellite CO data. We validate the CO variability of the recent emissions estimated from AIRS against other emission inventory databases (i.e., Global Fire Emissions Database – GFED3 and the MACC/CityZEN UE – MACCity) and calculate that the correlation coefficients between the AIRS CO recently emitted and the emission inventory databases are 0.726 for the Northern Hemisphere (NH) and 0.915 for the Southern Hemisphere (SH). The high degree of agreement between emissions identified using only AIRS CO and independent inventory sources demonstrates the validity of this approach to separate recent emissions from the background CO using one satellite data set.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 2533-2555 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merritt N. Deeter ◽  
David P. Edwards ◽  
Gene L. Francis ◽  
John C. Gille ◽  
Sara Martínez-Alonso ◽  
...  

Abstract. The MOPITT (Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere) satellite instrument has been making observations of atmospheric carbon monoxide since 2000. Recent enhancements to the MOPITT retrieval algorithm have resulted in the release of the version 7 (V7) product. Improvements include (1) representation of growing atmospheric concentrations of N2O, (2) use of meteorological fields from the MERRA-2 (Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications) reanalysis for the entire MOPITT mission (instead of MERRA), (3) use of the MODIS (Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) Collection 6 cloud mask product (instead of Collection 5), (4) a new strategy for radiance-bias correction and (5) an improved method for calibrating MOPITT's near-infrared (NIR) radiances. Statistical comparisons of V7 validation results with corresponding V6 results are presented, using aircraft in situ measurements as the reference. Clear improvements are demonstrated for V7 products with respect to overall retrieval biases, bias variability and bias drift uncertainty.


Author(s):  
Houaria Namaoui ◽  
Salem Kahlouche ◽  
Ahmed Hafidh Belbachir

Remote sensing of atmospheric water vapour using GNSS and Satellite data has become an efficient tool in meteorology and climate research. Many satellite data have been increasingly used to measure the content of water vapour in the atmosphere and to characterize its temporal and spatial variations. In this paper, we have used observations from radiosonde data collected from three stations (Algiers, Bechar and Tamanrasset) in Algeria from January to December 2012 to evaluate Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) total precipitable water vapour (PWV) products. Results show strong agreement between the total precipitable water contents estimated based on radiosondes observations and the ones measured by the sensor MODIS with the correlation coefficients in the range 0.69 to 0.95 and a mean bias, which does not exceed 1.5.  


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Huo ◽  
Daren Lu ◽  
Shu Duan ◽  
Yongheng Bi ◽  
Bo Liu

Abstract. To better understand the accuracy of cloud top heights (CTHs) derived from passive satellite data, ground-based Ka-band radar measurements from 2016 and 2017 in Beijing were compared with CTH data inferred from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI). Relative to the radar CTHs, the MODIS CTHs were found to be underestimated by −1.10 ± 2.53 km and 49 % of CTH differences were within 1.0 km. Like the MODIS results, the AHI CTHs were underestimated by −1.10 ± 2.27 km and 42 % were within 1.0 km. Both the MODIS and AHI retrieval accuracy depended strongly on the cloud depth (CD). Large differences were mainly occurring for the retrieval of thin clouds of CD  1 km, the CTH difference decreased to −0.48 ± 1.70 km for MODIS and to −0.76 ± 1.63 km for AHI. MODIS CTHs greater than 6 km showed better agreement with the radar data than those less than 4 km. Statistical analysis showed that the average AHI CTHs were lower than the average MODIS CTHs by −0.64 ± 2.36 km. The monthly accuracy of both retrieval algorithms was studied and it was found that the AHI retrieval algorithm had the largest bias in winter while the MODIS retrieval algorithm had the lowest accuracy in spring.


2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (11) ◽  
pp. 2529-2546 ◽  
Author(s):  
X. Zhuge ◽  
X. Zou

AbstractAssimilation of infrared channel radiances from geostationary imagers requires an algorithm that can separate cloudy radiances from clear-sky ones. An infrared-only cloud mask (CM) algorithm has been developed using the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) radiance observations. It consists of a new CM test for optically thin clouds, two modified Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) CM tests, and seven other ABI CM tests. These 10 CM tests are used to generate composite CMs for AHI data, which are validated by using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) CMs. It is shown that the probability of correct typing (PCT) of the new CM algorithm over ocean and over land is 89.73% and 90.30%, respectively and that the corresponding leakage rates (LR) are 6.11% and 4.21%, respectively. The new infrared-only CM algorithm achieves a higher PCT and a lower false-alarm rate (FAR) over ocean than does the Clouds from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) Extended System (CLAVR-x), which uses not only the infrared channels but also visible and near-infrared channels. A slightly higher FAR of 7.92% and LR of 6.18% occurred over land during daytime. This result requires further investigation.


Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (16) ◽  
pp. 3569
Author(s):  
Calleja ◽  
Corbea-Pérez ◽  
Fernández ◽  
Recondo ◽  
Peón ◽  
...  

The aim of this work is to investigate whether snow albedo seasonality and trend under all sky conditions at Johnsons Glacier (Livingston Island, Antarctica) can be tracked using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) snow albedo daily product MOD10A1. The time span is from December 2006 to February 2015. As the MOD10A1 snow albedo product has never been used in Antarctica before, we also assess the performance for the MOD10A1 cloud mask. The motivation for this work is the need for a description of snow albedo under all sky conditions (including overcast days) using satellite data with mid-spatial resolution. In-situ albedo was filtered with a 5-day windowed moving average, while the MOD10A1 data were filtered using a maximum filter. Both in-situ and MOD10A1 data follow an exponential decay during the melting season, with a maximum decay of 0.049/0.094 day−1 (in-situ/MOD10A1) for the 2006–2007 season and a minimum of 0.016/0.016 day−1 for the 2009–2010 season. The duration of the decay varies from 85 days (2007–2008) to 167 days (2013–2014). Regarding the albedo trend, both data sets exhibit a slight increase of albedo, which may be explained by an increase of snowfall along with a decrease of snowmelt in the study area. Annual albedo increases of 0.2% and 0.7% are obtained for in-situ and MOD10A1 data, respectively, which amount to respective increases of 2% and 6% in the period 2006–2015. We conclude that MOD10A1 can be used to characterize snow albedo seasonality and trend on Livingston Island when filtered with a maximum filter.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (24) ◽  
pp. 4096 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerry Meyer ◽  
Steven Platnick ◽  
Robert Holz ◽  
Steve Dutcher ◽  
Greg Quinn ◽  
...  

Climate studies, including trend detection and other time series analyses, necessarily require stable, well-characterized and long-term data records. For satellite-based geophysical retrieval datasets, such data records often involve merging the observational records of multiple similar, though not identical, instruments. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) cloud mask (CLDMSK) and cloud-top and optical properties (CLDPROP) products are designed to bridge the observational records of the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard NASA’s Aqua satellite and the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) onboard the joint NASA/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (SNPP) satellite and NOAA’s new generation of operational polar-orbiting weather platforms (NOAA-20+). Early implementations of the CLDPROP algorithms on Aqua MODIS and SNPP VIIRS suffered from large intersensor biases in cloud optical properties that were traced back to relative radiometric inconsistency in analogous shortwave channels on both imagers, with VIIRS generally observing brighter top-of-atmosphere spectral reflectance than MODIS (e.g., up to 5% brighter in the 0.67 µm channel). Radiometric adjustment factors for the SNPP and NOAA-20 VIIRS shortwave channels used in the cloud optical property retrievals are derived from an extensive analysis of the overlapping observational records with Aqua MODIS, specifically for homogenous maritime liquid water cloud scenes for which the viewing/solar geometry of MODIS and VIIRS match. Application of these adjustment factors to the VIIRS L1B prior to ingestion into the CLDMSK and CLDPROP algorithms yields improved intersensor agreement, particularly for cloud optical properties.


2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (7) ◽  
pp. 1388-1397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith D. Hutchison ◽  
Robert L. Mahoney ◽  
Eric F. Vermote ◽  
Thomas J. Kopp ◽  
John M. Jackson ◽  
...  

Abstract A geometry-based approach is presented to identify cloud shadows using an automated cloud classification algorithm developed for the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) program. These new procedures exploit both the cloud confidence and cloud phase intermediate products generated by the Visible/Infrared Imager/Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) cloud mask (VCM) algorithm. The procedures have been tested and found to accurately detect cloud shadows in global datasets collected by NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor and are applied over both land and ocean background conditions. These new procedures represent a marked departure from those used in the heritage MODIS cloud mask algorithm, which utilizes spectral signatures in an attempt to identify cloud shadows. However, they more closely follow those developed to identify cloud shadows in the MODIS Surface Reflectance (MOD09) data product. Significant differences were necessary in the implementation of the MOD09 procedures to meet NPOESS latency requirements in the VCM algorithm. In this paper, the geometry-based approach used to predict cloud shadows is presented, differences are highlighted between the heritage MOD09 algorithm and new VIIRS cloud shadow algorithm, and results are shown for both these algorithms plus cloud shadows generated by the spectral-based approach. The comparisons show that the geometry-based procedures produce cloud shadows far superior to those predicted with the spectral procedures. In addition, the new VCM procedures predict cloud shadows that agree well with those found in the MOD09 product while significantly reducing the execution time as required to meet the operational time constraints of the NPOESS system.


2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (19) ◽  
pp. 26003-26039 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Thonat ◽  
C. Crevoisier ◽  
N. A. Scott ◽  
A. Chédin ◽  
R. Armante ◽  
...  

Abstract. Five years (July 2007–June 2012) of CO tropospheric columns derived from the IASI hyperspectral infrared sounder onboard Metop-A are used to study the impact of fires on the concentrations of CO in the mid-troposphere. Following Chédin et al. (2005, 2008), who showed the existence of a daily tropospheric excess of CO2 quantitatively related to fire emissions, we show that tropospheric CO also displays a diurnal signal with a seasonality that is in very good agreement with the seasonal evolution of fires given by GFED3.1 (Global Fire Emission Database) emissions and MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) burned area. Unlike daytime or nighttime CO fields, which mix local emissions with nearby emissions transported to the region of study, the day-night difference of CO allows to highlight the CO signal due to local fire emissions. A linear relationship is found in the whole tropical region between CO fire emissions from the GFED3.1 inventory and the diurnal difference of IASI CO (R2 ~ 0.6). Based on the specificity of the two main phases of the combustion (flaming vs. smoldering) and on the vertical sensitivity of the sounder to CO, the following mechanism is proposed to explain such a CO diurnal signal: at night, after the passing of IASI at 9.30 p.m. LT, a large amount of CO emissions from the smoldering phase is trapped in the boundary layer before being uplifted the next morning by natural and pyro-convection up to the free troposphere, where it is seen by IASI at 9.30 a.m. LT. The results presented here highlight the need for developing complementary approaches to bottom-up emissions inventories and for taking into account the specificity of both the flaming and smoldering phases of fire emissions in order to fully take advantage of CO observations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 1985 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sundar Christopher ◽  
Pawan Gupta

Using a combined Terra and Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) mid-visible aerosol optical depth (AOD) product at 0.1 × 0.1-degree spatial resolution and collocated surface PM2.5 (particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter smaller than 2.5 μm) monitors, we provide a global five-year (2015–2019) assessment of the spatial and seasonal AOD–PM2.5 relationships of slope, intercepts, and correlation coefficients. Only data from ground monitors accessible through an open air-quality portal that are available to the worldwide community for air quality research and decision making are used in this study. These statistics that are reported 1 × 1-degree resolution are important since satellite AOD is often used in conjunction with spatially limited surface PM2.5 monitors to estimate global distributions of surface particulate matter concentrations. Results indicate that more than 3000 ground monitors are now available for PM2.5 studies. While there is a large spread in correlation coefficients between AOD and PM2.5, globally, averaged over all seasons, the correlation coefficient is 0.55 with a unit AOD producing 54 μgm−3 of PM2.5 (Slope) with an intercept of 8 μgm−3. While the number of surface PM2.5 measurements has increased by a factor of 10 over the last decade, a concerted effort is still needed to continue to increase these monitors in areas that have no surface monitors, especially in large population centers that will further leverage the strengths of satellite data.


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