Operational remote sensing of tropospheric aerosol over land from EOS moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer

Abstract

Abstract. Daily distribution of the aerosol optical thickness and columnar mass concentration will be derived over the continents, from the EOS moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) using dark land targets. Dark land covers are mainly vegetated areas and dark soils observed in the red and blue channels; therefore the method will be limited to the moist parts of the continents (excluding water and ice cover). After the launch of MODIS the distribution of elevated aerosol concentrations, for example, biomass burning in the tropics or urban industrial aerosol in the midlatitudes, will be continuously monitored. The algorithm takes advantage of the MODIS wide spectral range and high spatial resolution and the strong spectral dependence of the aerosol opacity for most aerosol types that result in low optical thickness in the mid-IR (

Radiative impact of mineral dust on monsoon precipitation variability over West Africa

“…The standard MODIS aerosol product does not retrieve aerosol information over bright surfaces (e.g., Sahara desert) due to a strong surface spectral contribution in the visible range (Kaufman et al, 1997). However, recently, a new algorithm, called the "Deep Blue algorithm" (Hsu et al, 2006), has been integrated with the existing MODIS algorithm to retrieve AOD even over bright surfaces.…”

“…Therefore, in this study, the retrieved "deep blue" AOD from MODIS (Collection 5) (only available over land and from the MODIS on Aqua so far) (Levy et al, 2007;Remer et al, 2005) is used over land, while the standard retrieved AOD is used over the ocean. The MODIS on board the Aqua platform passes over the equator at ∼13:30 LT during daytime (Kaufman et al, 1997). When comparing model simulated AOD with MODIS retrievals, model results are sampled in the same overpass time as Aqua.…”

Response to “Toward unified satellite climatology of aerosol properties. 3. MODIS versus MISR versus AERONET”

“…MISR and MODIS, both of which fly aboard the NASA Earth Observing System's Terra spacecraft, represent a significant advance over the previous generation of space-based aerosol instruments. Relatively high spatial resolution imaging, calibration accuracy and radiometric stability, along with an increased number of spectral bands for MODIS and the combination of spectral bands and multiple view angles from MISR, have led to more robust aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrievals over both water and land, with less restrictive algorithmic assumptions [1][2][3][4][5]. In addition, the MODIS algorithm derives coarse vs. fine-mode ratio over water, whereas MISR can distinguish about a dozen aerosol air mass types, under favorable retrieval conditions, based on particle size, shape, and single-scattering albedo constraints.…”

Application of a new leaf area index algorithm to China's landmass using MODIS data for carbon cycle research

“…First, these reflectance data were atmospherically corrected by a dark object method (Kaufman et al, 1997). Although this approach is only suitable for vegetated regions, it is adequate for LAI retrieval.…”