Articles | Volume 17, issue 8
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-5095-2017
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-5095-2017
Research article
 | 
19 Apr 2017
Research article |  | 19 Apr 2017

Development and assessment of a higher-spatial-resolution (4.4 km) MISR aerosol optical depth product using AERONET-DRAGON data

Michael J. Garay, Olga V. Kalashnikova, and Michael A. Bull

Abstract. Since early 2000, the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument on NASA's Terra satellite has been acquiring data that have been used to produce aerosol optical depth (AOD) and particle property retrievals at 17.6 km spatial resolution. Capitalizing on the capabilities provided by multi-angle viewing, the current operational (Version 22) MISR algorithm performs well, with about 75 % of MISR AOD retrievals globally falling within 0.05 or 20 %  ×  AOD of paired validation data from the ground-based Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET). This paper describes the development and assessment of a prototype version of a higher-spatial-resolution 4.4 km MISR aerosol optical depth product compared against multiple AERONET Distributed Regional Aerosol Gridded Observations Network (DRAGON) deployments around the globe. In comparisons with AERONET-DRAGON AODs, the 4.4 km resolution retrievals show improved correlation (r = 0. 9595), smaller RMSE (0.0768), reduced bias (−0.0208), and a larger fraction within the expected error envelope (80.92 %) relative to the Version 22 MISR retrievals.

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Short summary
Satellite data from the MISR instrument were used to produce aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrievals at 4.4 km spatial resolution, a factor of 16 improvement relative to the currently operational 17.6 km product. Retrievals were compared with high-spatial-resolution ground-based observations made by AERONET-DRAGON deployments around the globe. It was found that the 4.4 km MISR retrievals performed significantly better than the 17.6 km retrievals in comparisons made at over 100 individual sites.
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