STAR / SMCD / EMB Aerosol Remote Sensing
NESDIS Aerosol Products: AVHRR
NOAA/NESDIS has been routinely estimating aerosol amount over the world's oceans from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) onboard the NOAA polar orbiting operational satellites. The products are daily, weekly, and monthly global one-degree maps of Aerosol Optical Thickness. The weekly products are based on a composite of one week's worth of data, and the monthly mean products are based on the average of each week's data for the month. Currently they are created from AVHRR channel 1, 2 and 3 optical thickness retrievals from AVHRR 4-km global area coverage (GAC) data. The figure below displays the latest image of the aerosol optical thickness, while the table below the image summarizes the main features of the product.
| Satellite: | NOAA |
|---|---|
| Instrument(s): | AVHRR |
| Instrument/algorithm PI: | I. Laszlo and A. Ignatov, NOAA |
| Contact details: | Istvan Laszlo; Istvan.Laszlo at noaa.gov |
| Parameter(s): | aerosol optical thickness |
| Aerosol algorithm: | AEROBS |
| Cloud screening: | CLAVR/CLAVR-x |
| Aerosol model: | non-absorbing w. monomodal lognormal size distribution |
| Retrieval assumptions: | ocean reflectance is accurately calculated |
| Retrieval limitations: | glint area (<40° glint angle) & solar side of orbit are excluded; View and solar zenith angles >60° are excluded |
| Spatial, temporal coverage: | global oceans, 1988 onward |
| Spatial, temporal resolution: | 8 km/daily, 110 km analysis/day/week, month |
| Operations status: | operational / reprocessing |
| Validation status: | AERONET & other satellite inter-comparison studies |
| Quality control: | self- and inter-consistency checks |
| Last algorithm version: | third-generation algorithm (09/2000) |
| Product format description: | http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/pod-guide/ncdc/docs/klm/html/c9/sec9-8.htm |
| Algorithm description: | Ignatov, Alexander, John Sapper, Stephen Cox, Istvan Laszlo, Nicholas R. Nalli, Katherine B. Kidwell, 2004: Operational Aerosol Observations (AEROBS) from AVHRR/3 On Board NOAA-KLM Satellites. J. Atmos. Oceanic Technol., 21, 3-26. |