ACPD Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions ACPD Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss. 1680-7375 Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acpd-12-10461-2012 Merging aerosol optical depth data from multiple satellite missions to view agricultural biomass burning in Central and East China Xue Y. 1 3 Xu H. 2 6 Mei L. 2 6 Guang J. 2 Guo J. 4 Li Y. 2 6 Hou T. 1 6 Li C. 1 6 Yang L. 5 He X. 2 6 Laboratory of Digital Earth Sciences, Center for Earth Observation and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 9 Dengzhuang South Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100094, China State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, Jointly Sponsored by the Institute of Remote Sensing Applications of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Beijing Normal University, Institute of Remote Sensing Applications, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Bei Faculty of Computing, London Metropolitan University, 166–220 Holloway Road, London N7 8DB, UK Centre for Atmosphere Watch and Services, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing 100081, China School of Geography, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China 24 04 2012 12 4 10461 10492 Copyright: © 2012 Y. Xue et al. 2012 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This article is available from https://acp.copernicus.org/preprints/12/10461/2012/acpd-12-10461-2012.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://acp.copernicus.org/preprints/12/10461/2012/acpd-12-10461-2012.pdf

Agricultural biomass burning (ABB) in Central and East China occurs every year from May to October and peaks in June. The biomass burning event in June 2007 was very strong. During the period from 26 May to 16 June 2007, ABB occurred mainly in Anhui, Henan, Jiangsu and Shandong provinces. A comprehensive set of aerosol optical depth (AOD) data, produced by a merger of AOD product data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the Multiangle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MIRS), is used to study the spatial and temporal distribution of agricultural biomass aerosols in Central and East China combining with ground observations from both AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) and China Aerosol Remote Sensing NETwork (CARSNET) measurements. We compared merged AOD data with single-sensor single-algorithm AOD data (MODIS Dark Target AOD data, MODIS Deep Blue AOD data, SRAP-MODIS AOD data and MISR AOD data). In this comparison, we found merged AOD products can improve the quality of AOD products from single-sensor single-algorithm data sets by expanding the spatial coverage of the study area and keeping the statistical confidence in AOD parameters. There existed high correlation (0.8479) between the merged AOD data and AERONET measurements. Our merged AOD data make use of synergetic information conveyed in all of the available satellite data. The merged AOD data were used for the analysis of the biomass burning event from 26 May to 16 June 2007 together with meteorological data. The merged AOD products and the ground observations from China suggest that biomass burning in Central and East China has had great impact on AOD over China. Influenced by this ABB, the highest AOD value in Beijing on 12 June 2007 reached 5.71.

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