scholarly journals Improved MODIS Dark Target Aerosol Optical Depth algorithm over land: Angular effect Correction

Author(s):  
Yerong Wu ◽  
Martin de Graaf ◽  
Massimo Menenti

Abstract. Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) retrieved from MOderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) measurements over land, can be improved by taking into account the surface Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF), as shown in a previous study (Wu et al., 2016). However, the relationship of the surface reflectance between visible and short wave Infrared band that applied in the previous study, can lead to an angular dependence of the AOD retrieval. This has at least two reasons. The relationship based on the assumption of isotropic reflection or Lambertian surface is not suitable for the surface directional-directional reflectance. On the other hand, although the relationship varies with the surface cover type by considering the vegetation index NDVI_SWIR, this index itself has a directional effect and affects the estimation of the surface reflection, and finally can lead to some errors in the AOD retrieval. To improve this situation, we derived a new relationship for the spectral surface directional-directional reflectance in this study, using 3 years of dataset from AERONET-based Surface Reflectance Validation Network (ASRVN). To test the performance of the new algorithm, three case studies were used: 2 years of data from Eastern China and North America, and 4 months of data from the global land. The results show that the angular effects of the AOD retrieval are largely reduced in most cases. Particularly, for the global land case, the AOD retrieval was improved by the new algorithm compared to the previous study and MODIS collection 6 dark target algorithm, with the increase of 2.5 % and 5 % AOD retrievals falling within the expected accuracy level ±(0.05 + 15 %), respectively.

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 5575-5589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yerong Wu ◽  
Martin de Graaf ◽  
Massimo Menenti

Abstract. Aerosol optical depth (AOD) product retrieved from MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) measurements has greatly benefited scientific research in climate change and air quality due to its high quality and large coverage over the globe. However, the current product (e.g., Collection 6) over land needs to be further improved. The is because AOD retrieval still suffers large uncertainty from the surface reflectance (e.g., anisotropic reflection) although the impacts of the surface reflectance have been largely reduced using the Dark Target (DT) algorithm. It has been shown that the AOD retrieval over dark surface can be improved by considering surface bidirectional distribution reflectance function (BRDF) effects in previous study. However, the relationship of the surface reflectance between visible and shortwave infrared band that applied in the previous study can lead to an angular dependence of the AOD retrieval. This has at least two reasons. The relationship based on the assumption of isotropic reflection or Lambertian surface is not suitable for the surface bidirectional reflectance factor (BRF). However, although the relationship varies with the surface cover type by considering the vegetation index NDVISWIR, this index itself has a directional effect and affects the estimation of the surface reflection, and it can lead to some errors in the AOD retrieval. To improve this situation, we derived a new relationship for the spectral surface BRF in this study, using 3 years of data from AERONET-based Surface Reflectance Validation Network (ASRVN). To test the performance of the new algorithm, two case studies were used: 2 years of data from North America and 4 months of data from the global land. The results show that the angular effects of the AOD retrieval are largely reduced in most cases, including fewer occurrences of negative retrievals. Particularly, for the global land case, the AOD retrieval was improved by the new algorithm compared to the previous study and MODIS Collection 6 DT algorithm, with the increase of 2.0 and 4.5 % AOD retrievals falling within the expected accuracy envelope ±(0.05 + 15 %), respectively. This implies that the users can get more accurate data without angular bias, i.e., more meaningful AOD data.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (24) ◽  
pp. 18375-18391
Author(s):  
Qingqing He ◽  
Mengya Wang ◽  
Steve Hung Lam Yim

Abstract. Satellite aerosol retrievals have been a popular alternative to monitoring the surface-based PM2.5 concentration due to their extensive spatial and temporal coverage. Satellite-derived PM2.5 estimations strongly rely on an accurate representation of the relationship between ground-level PM2.5 and satellite aerosol optical depth (AOD). Due to the limitations of satellite AOD data, most studies have examined the relationship at a coarse resolution (i.e., ≥ 10 km); thus, more effort is still needed to better understand the relationship between “in situ” PM2.5 and AOD at finer spatial scales. While PM2.5 and AOD could have obvious temporal variations, few studies have examined the diurnal variation in their relationship. Therefore, considerable uncertainty still exists in satellite-derived PM2.5 estimations due to these research gaps. Taking advantage of the newly released fine-spatial-resolution satellite AOD data derived from the Multi-Angle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC) algorithm and real-time ground aerosol and PM2.5 measurements, this study explicitly explored the relationship between PM2.5 and AOD as well as its plausible impact factors, including meteorological parameters and topography, in mainland China during 2019, at various spatial and temporal scales. The coefficient of variation, the Pearson correlation coefficient and the slope of the linear regression model were used. Spatially, stronger correlations mainly occurred in northern and eastern China, and the linear slope was larger on average in northern inland regions than in other areas. Temporally, the PM2.5–AOD correlation peaked at noon and in the afternoon, and reached a maximum in winter. Simultaneously, considering relative humidity (RH) and the planetary boundary layer height (PBLH) in the relationship can improve the correlation, but the effect of RH and the PBLH on the correlation varied spatially and temporally with respect to both strength and direction. In addition, the largest correlation occurred at 400–600 m primarily in basin terrain such as the Sichuan Basin, the Shanxi–Shaanxi basins and the Junggar Basin. MAIAC 1 km AOD can better represent the ground-level fine particulate matter in most domains with exceptions, such as in very high terrain (i.e., Tibetan Plateau) and northern central China (i.e., Qinghai and Gansu). The findings of this study have useful implications for satellite-based PM2.5 monitoring and will further inform the understanding of the aerosol variation and PM2.5 pollution status of mainland China.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (18) ◽  
pp. 3752
Author(s):  
Zhendong Sun ◽  
Jing Wei ◽  
Ning Zhang ◽  
Yulong He ◽  
Yu Sun ◽  
...  

Gaofen 4 (GF-4) is a geostationary satellite, with a panchromatic and multispectral sensor (PMS) onboard, and has great potential in observing atmospheric aerosols. In this study, we developed an aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrieval algorithm for the GF-4 satellite. AOD retrieval was realized based on the pre-calculated surface reflectance database and 6S radiative transfer model. We customized the unique aerosol type according to the long time series aerosol parameters provided by the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) site. The solar zenith angle, relative azimuth angle, and satellite zenith angle of the GF-4 panchromatic multispectral sensor image were calculated pixel-by-pixel. Our 1 km AOD retrievals were validated against AERONET Version 3 measurements and compared with MOD04 C6 AOD products at different resolutions. The results showed that our GF-4 AOD algorithm had a good robustness in both bright urban areas and dark rural areas. A total of 71.33% of the AOD retrievals fell within the expected errors of ±(0.05% + 20%); root-mean-square error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MAE) were 0.922 and 0.122, respectively. The accuracy of GF-4 AOD in rural areas was slightly higher than that in urban areas. In comparison with MOD04 products, the accuracy of GF-4 AOD was much higher than that of MOD04 3 km and 10 km dark target AOD, but slightly worse than that of MOD04 10 km deep blue AOD. For different values of land surface reflectance (LSR), the accuracy of GF-4 AOD gradually deteriorated with an increase in the LSR. These results have theoretical and practical significance for aerosol research and can improve retrieval algorithms using the GF-4 satellite.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 978
Author(s):  
Ding Li ◽  
Kai Qin ◽  
Lixin Wu ◽  
Linlu Mei ◽  
Gerrit de Leeuw ◽  
...  

Himawari-8 (H8), as a new generation geostationary meteorological satellite, has great potential for monitoring the spatial–temporal variation of aerosol properties. However, the large amount of spectral data with differing observation geometries require re-formulation of the surface reflectance correction to utilize this new satellite data. This is achieved by using an improved version of the time series (TS) technique proposed by Mei et al., (2012) based on the assumption that the ratio of the surface reflectance in different spectral bands does not change between any two scan times within an hour. In addition, more suitable aerosol models were adopted, based on cluster analysis of local Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) data. The improved TS algorithm (ITS) was applied to retrieve the Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) over eastern China and the results compare favorably with collocated reference AOD data at eleven sun photometer sites (R > 0.8, Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) < 0.2). Comparison with the H8 official AOD product and with MODIS Dark Target (DT)–Deep Blue (DB) combined AOD data shows the good performance of the ITS method for AOD retrieval with different observation angles.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 2231
Author(s):  
Débora Souza Alvim ◽  
Júlio Barboza Chiquetto ◽  
Monica Tais Siqueira D’Amelio ◽  
Bushra Khalid ◽  
Dirceu Luis Herdies ◽  
...  

The scope of this work was to evaluate simulated carbon monoxide (CO) and aerosol optical depth (AOD) from the CAM-chem model against observed satellite data and additionally explore the empirical relationship of CO, AOD and fire radiative power (FRP). The simulated seasonal global concentrations of CO and AOD were compared, respectively, with the Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT) and the Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite products for the period 2010–2014. The CAM-chem simulations were performed with two configurations: (A) tropospheric-only; and (B) tropospheric with stratospheric chemistry. Our results show that the spatial and seasonal distributions of CO and AOD were reasonably reproduced in both model configurations, except over central China, central Africa and equatorial regions of the Atlantic and Western Pacific, where CO was overestimated by 10–50 ppb. In configuration B, the positive CO bias was significantly reduced due to the inclusion of dry deposition, which was not present in the model configuration A. There was greater CO loss due to the chemical reactions, and shorter lifetime of the species with stratospheric chemistry. In summary, the model has difficulty in capturing the exact location of the maxima of the seasonal AOD distributions in both configurations. The AOD was overestimated by 0.1 to 0.25 over desert regions of Africa, the Middle East and Asia in both configurations, but the positive bias was even higher in the version with added stratospheric chemistry. By contrast, the AOD was underestimated over regions associated with anthropogenic activity, such as eastern China and northern India. Concerning the correlations between CO, AOD and FRP, high CO is found during March–April–May (MAM) in the Northern Hemisphere, mainly in China. In the Southern Hemisphere, high CO, AOD, and FRP values were found during August–September–October (ASO) due to fires, mostly in South America and South Africa. In South America, high AOD levels were observed over subtropical Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia. Sparsely urbanized regions showed higher correlations between CO and FRP (0.7–0.9), particularly in tropical areas, such as the western Amazon region. There was a high correlation between CO and aerosols from biomass burning at the transition between the forest and savanna environments over eastern and central Africa. It was also possible to observe the transport of these pollutants from the African continent to the Brazilian coast. High correlations between CO and AOD were found over southeastern Asian countries, and correlations between FRP and AOD (0.5–0.8) were found over higher latitude regions such as Canada and Siberia as well as in tropical areas. Higher correlations between CO and FRP are observed in Savanna and Tropical forests (South America, Central America, Africa, Australia, and Southeast Asia) than FRP x AOD. In contrast, boreal forests in Russia, particularly in Siberia, show a higher FRP x AOD correlation than FRP x CO. In tropical forests, CO production is likely favored over aerosol, while in temperate forests, aerosol production is more than CO compared to tropical forests. On the east coast of the United States, the eastern border of the USA with Canada, eastern China, on the border between China, Russia, and Mongolia, and the border between North India and China, there is a high correlation of CO x AOD and a low correlation between FRP with both CO and AOD. Therefore, such emissions in these regions are not generated by forest fires but by industries and vehicular emissions since these are densely populated regions.


2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (12) ◽  
pp. 17251-17281 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Xu ◽  
R. V. Martin ◽  
A. van Donkelaar ◽  
J. Kim ◽  
M. Choi ◽  
...  

Abstract. We determine and interpret fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations in East China for January to December 2013 at a horizontal resolution of 6 km from aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrieved from the Korean Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI) satellite instrument. We implement a set of filters to minimize cloud contamination in GOCI AOD. Evaluation of filtered GOCI AOD with AOD from the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) indicates significant agreement with mean fractional bias (MFB) in Beijing of 6.7 % and northern Taiwan of −1.2 %. We use a global chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem) to relate the total column AOD to the near-surface PM2.5. The simulated PM2.5/AOD ratio exhibits high consistency with ground-based measurements (MFB = −0.52–8.0 %). We evaluate the satellite-derived PM2.5 vs. the ground-level PM2.5 in 2013 measured by the China Environmental Monitoring Center. Significant agreement is found between GOCI-derived PM2.5 and in-situ observations in both annual averages (r = 0.81, N = 494) and monthly averages (MFB = 13.1 %), indicating GOCI provides valuable data for air quality studies in Northeast Asia. The GEOS-Chem simulated chemical speciation of GOCI-derived PM2.5 reveals that secondary inorganics (SO42−, NO3−, NH4+) and organic matter are the most significant components. Biofuel emissions in northern China for heating are responsible for an increase in the concentration of organic matter in winter. The population-weighted GOCI-derived PM2.5 over East China for 2013 is 53.8 μg m−3, threatening the health and life expectancy of its 600 million residents.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 5955-5975
Author(s):  
Hai Zhang ◽  
Shobha Kondragunta ◽  
Istvan Laszlo ◽  
Mi Zhou

Abstract. The Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) on board the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R (GOES-R) series enables retrieval of aerosol optical depth (AOD) from geostationary satellites using a multiband algorithm similar to those of polar-orbiting satellites' sensors, such as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). However, this work demonstrates that the current version of GOES-16 (GOES-East) ABI AOD has diurnally varying biases due to limitations in the land surface reflectance relationships between the 0.47 µm band and the 2.2 µm band and between the 0.64 µm band and 2.2 µm band used in the ABI AOD retrieval algorithm, which vary with the Sun–satellite geometry and NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index). To reduce these biases, an empirical bias correction algorithm has been developed based on the lowest observed ABI AOD of an adjacent 30 d period and the background AOD at each time step and at each pixel. The bias correction algorithm improves the performance of ABI AOD compared to AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) AOD, especially for the high and medium (top 2) quality ABI AOD. AOD data for the period 6 August to 31 December 2018 are used to evaluate the bias correction algorithm. After bias correction, the correlation between the top 2 quality ABI AOD and AERONET AOD improves from 0.87 to 0.91, the mean bias improves from 0.04 to 0.00, and root-mean-square error (RMSE) improves from 0.09 to 0.05. These results for the bias-corrected top 2 qualities ABI AOD are comparable to those of the corrected high-quality ABI AOD. By using the top 2 qualities of ABI AOD in conjunction with the bias correction algorithm, the areal coverage of ABI AOD is increased by about 100 % without loss of data accuracy.


Author(s):  
S. Talebi ◽  
J. Shi ◽  
T. Zhao

This paper presents a theoretical study of derivation Microwave Vegetation Indices (MVIs) in different pairs of frequencies using two methods. In the first method calculating MVI in different frequencies based on Matrix Doubling Model (to take in to account multi scattering effects) has been done and analyzed in various soil properties. The second method was based on MVI theoretical basis and its independency to underlying soil surface signals. Comparing the results from two methods with vegetation properties (single scattering albedo and optical depth) indicated partial correlation between MVI from first method and optical depth, and full correlation between MVI from second method and vegetation properties. The second method to derive MVI can be used widely in global microwave vegetation monitoring.


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