Spatial Correlations of Aerosol Optical Depth Over Land
Abstract
The accurate atmospheric correction of historical satellite long-term data is required to make them suitable for climate change application. This is essential to properly identify the impacts caused by changing surface properties, such as vegetation, soil and snow cover, rather than atmospheric effects, cloud contamination and artefacts. The correction of satellite data over land for aerosol effect constitutes the most challenging part of the processing. While a good progress in aerosol retrievals has been achieved in recent years using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR), the aerosol properties and their associated impact on atmospheric correction for historical data over land from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) onboard NOAA satellites for pre-MODIS period is still not adequately addressed. It seems promising to develop the AVHRR atmospheric correction algorithm based on the synthesis of aerosol retrievals over dark targets and optimum interpolation technique based on aerosol spatio-temporal statistics. The implementation of this approach requires the knowledge of aerosol spatial correlation function. The estimates of aerosol optical depth (AOD) spatial correlation function were obtained in this study using different data sources: MODIS level 2 and level 3 aerosol products, daily averages of ground sun photometer aerosol retrievals from Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) and the global chemistry and aerosol atmospheric transport model results from NASA's GOCART. The AOD correlation properties obtained from different types of MODIS aerosol products were found in reasonably good agreement with each other. The AOD correlation radius for different types of MODIS data varied from 418 km to 900 km. The AOD correlation radius obtained from AERONET data was found to be close to 500km. Substantial differences were detected between AOD spatial correlation function derived from MODIS satellite product and atmospheric transport model results. We will discuss the details of intercomparison and possible explanations for observed results.
- Publication:
-
AGU Spring Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- May 2009
- Bibcode:
- 2009AGUSM.A33C..05R
- Keywords:
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- 0305 Aerosols and particles (0345;
- 4801;
- 4906);
- 3360 Remote sensing