Evaluation of ten aerosol optical depth datasets over AERONET sites

• Main Authors: Shi, Hanyu, Xiao, Zhiqiang, Zhan, Xuchen, Liang, Shunlin
• Format: Report
• Language: unknown
• Published: Open Science Framework 2018
• Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences; FOS Earth and related environmental sciences; Physical Sciences and Mathematics; Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology; Merra; Aerosol Robotic Network
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.17605/osf.io/jwcs8; https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/jwcs8

In this study, 400 sites from the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) from 2002-2015 are selected to develop an aerosol optical depth (AOD) evaluation dataset. The evaluation dataset is used to evaluate two reanalysis AOD datasets from Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) projects, MERRAero and MERRA-2, and eight satellite AOD datasets from Terra and Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) products. Each of the ten AOD datasets is first evaluated individually, and then, a comparison of the MODIS, MERRAero and MERRA-2 datasets is conducted. The results show that the MODIS AOD datasets are of better quality than the reanalysis datasets. Compared to the MERRAero AOD, the MERRA-2 AOD are significantly improved but still underestimate the AERONET values. The precisions of the Aqua MODIS AOD datasets are higher than those of the corresponding Terra MODIS AOD datasets. Among the MODIS datasets, those retrieved by the dark target algorithm are the most precise.