Aerosol Optical Thickness over North Africa: Multi Satellite Product Analysis

Daily Aerosol Optical Thickness at 0.55 µm (AOT) over the desert regions is needed for many aerosol related applications such as validation for numerical models. Since a single satellite sensor is not currently able to provide AOT over deserts on a daily basis (except beta version of deep blue product from MODIS Aqua), we have developed a daily AOT product derived from TOMS/OMI Aerosol Index (AI). MISR and TOMS/OMI multi year monthly mean aerosol products are used in development of AOT algorithm. We further examined the AOT data from the ground to validate our methods and results. While previous studies have examined the TOMS AI with limited ground-based sun photometer data, our study extends this to multiple satellite sensors over seven years (2000- 2006). Present study will also compare the above retrieved product with the OMI's operational AOT product over several AERONET locations in the study area.