Application of MODIS BRDF to AOD retrieval from Single Visible Channel of MTSAT-1R

Aerosols in atmosphere have effects in climate system and human life. Aerosol retrieval using satellite remote sensing is essential in order to address aerosol climatic issues on earth climate system. In this study, Aerosol Optical Depth at 0.55 micrometer was retrieved using single visible channel from the Multi-Functional Transport Satellite-1 Replacement (MTSAT-1R) geostationary satellite, in coupled with the Bidirectional Reflect Distribution Function (BRDF) correction using MODIS dataset and the Look Up Table (LUTs) developed by radiative transfer model model (6S). The uncertainty of this algorithm comes mainly from characterizing surface reflectance and assuming aerosol model. For the determination of surface reflectance, minimum surface reflectance technique and BRDF correction are applied. And aerosol optical properties are obtained from long term observation of AERONET (Aerosol RObotic NETwork) at the sites of the Anmyon-do (AT), Beijing (BT) , Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PT) and Hok Tsui (HT) for different seasons, which are applied to calculate look-up tables (LUT). The retrieved AODs show good agreement with MODIS RGB image, but the results with PT model have relatively higher value than other type results because of the high absorption properties. The retrieved AODs are compared with values from AERONET for a year of 2006. The results show reasonable correlations with correlation coefficients of 0.4 - 0.8. The correlation is significantly increased from the r variation from -0.4 to 0.8 to 0.5 to 0.8 after the BRDF correction. Also, improvement in characterizing aerosol model and cloud masking are expected to decrease the uncertainties further.