Evaluation of VIIRS Land Aerosol Model Selection with AERONET Measurements

The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) is a next-generation polar-orbiting operational environmental sensor with a capability for global aerosol observations. Identifying land aerosol types is important because aerosol types are a basic input in retrieving aerosol optical properties f...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Main Authors: Wei Wang, Zengxin Pan, Feiyue Mao, Wei Gong, Longjiao Shen
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2017
Subjects:
aerosol model
VIIRS
AOD
AERONET
Medicine
R
Aerosol Robotic Network
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14091016
https://doaj.org/article/73f7fc730ea84036bb32e13537fd71ea
Description
Summary:The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) is a next-generation polar-orbiting operational environmental sensor with a capability for global aerosol observations. Identifying land aerosol types is important because aerosol types are a basic input in retrieving aerosol optical properties for VIIRS. The VIIRS algorithm can automatically select the optimal land aerosol model by minimizing the residual between the derived and expected spectral surface reflectance. In this study, these selected VIIRS aerosol types are evaluated using collocated aerosol types obtained from the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) level 1.5 from 23 January 2013 to 28 February 2017. The spatial distribution of VIIRS aerosol types and the aerosol optical depth bias (VIIRS minus AERONET) demonstrate that misidentifying VIIRS aerosol types may lead to VIIRS retrieval being overestimated over the Eastern United States and the developed regions of East Asia, as well as underestimated over Southern Africa, India, and Northeastern China. Approximately 22.33% of VIIRS aerosol types are coincident with that of AERONET. The agreements between VIIRS and AERONET for fine non-absorbing and absorbing aerosol types are approximately 36% and 57%, respectively. However, the agreement between VIIRS and AERONET is extremely low (only 3.51%). The low agreement for coarse absorbing dust may contribute to the poor performance of VIIRS retrieval under the aerosol model (R = 0.61). Results also show that an appropriate aerosol model can improve the retrieval performance of VIIRS over land, particularly for dust type (R increases from 0.61 to 0.72).

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