VIIRS 3 Day AOT Movie

VIIRS 3 day smoke mask movie shows 3 day animation of VIIRS AOT overlaid on RGB image.

AOT is a measure of the scattering and absorption of visible light by particles in a vertical column of the atmosphere. It is also called Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD). AOT is related to particulate matter (e.g., PM2.5) concentrations in the atmosphere; higher values of AOT correspond to higher concentrations of particles. Clouds block AOT retrievals, so there are no AOT data for cloud-covered areas. AOT is useful for identifying and tracking areas of high particulate concentrations that correspond to an air quality event, such as a wildfire, dust storm, or haze episode. We plot smoke AOT as color coded image range from 0 to 1.

Users can select region of interest by clicking the icons at the bottom of this page. Seven regions can be selected: Southwest, Northwest, Southeast, Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, CONUS, and CONUS+Canada. The default region is CONUS.