Global validation of columnar water vapor derived from EOS MODIS-MAIAC algorithm against the ground-based AERONET observations ...

• Main Authors: Martins, Vitor S., Lyapustin, Alexei, Wang, Yujie, Giles, David M., Smirnov, Alexander, Slutsker, Ilya, Korkin, Sergey
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Elsevier 2019
• Subjects: Aerosol Robotic Network
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.13016/m2kgvg-vjye; https://mdsoar.org/handle/11603/28817

The water vapor is a relevant greenhouse gas in the Earth's climate system, and satellite products become one of the most effective way to characterize and monitor the columnar water vapor (CWV) content at global scale. Recently, a new product (MCD19) was released as part of MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) Collection 6 (C6). This operational product from Multi-Angle Implementation for Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC) algorithm includes a high 1 km resolution CWV retrievals. This study presents the first global validation of MAIAC C6 CWV obtained from MODIS MCD19A2 product. This evaluation was performed using Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) observations at 265 sites (2000–2017). Overall, the results show a good agreement between MAIAC/AERONET CWV retrievals, with correlation coefficient higher than 0.95 and RMS error lower than 0.250 cm. The binned error analysis revealed an underestimation (~10%) of Aqua CWV retrievals with negative bias for CWV higher than 3.0 cm. In contrast, Terra ...