Validation of the GRAPE single view aerosol retrieval for ATSR-2 and insights into the long term global AOD trend over the ocean

Thomas, G. E., Poulsen, C. A., Siddans, R., Sayer, A. M., Carboni, E., Marsh, S. H., Dean, S. M., Grainger, R. G. and Lawrence, B. N. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9262-7860 (2010) Validation of the GRAPE single view aerosol retrieval for ATSR-2 and insights into the long term global AOD trend over the ocean. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 10 (10). pp. 4849-4866. ISSN 1680-7316 doi: 10.5194/acp-10-4849-2010

Abstract/Summary

The Global Retrieval of ATSR Cloud Parameters and Evaluation (GRAPE) project has produced a global data-set of cloud and aerosol properties from the Along Track Scanning Radiometer-2 (ATSR-2) instrument, covering the time period 1995�2001. This paper presents the validation of aerosol optical depths (AODs) over the ocean from this product against AERONET sun-photometer measurements, as well as a comparison to the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) optical depth product produced by the Global Aerosol Climatology Project (GACP). The GRAPE AOD over ocean is found to be in good agreement with AERONET measurements, with a Pearson's correlation coefficient of 0.79 and a best-fit slope of 1.0±0.1, but with a positive bias of 0.08±0.04. Although the GRAPE and GACP datasets show reasonable agreement, there are significant differences. These discrepancies are explored, and suggest that the downward trend in AOD reported by GACP may arise from changes in sampling due to the orbital drift of the AVHRR instruments.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/25096
Identification Number/DOI	10.5194/acp-10-4849-2010
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > NCAS
Publisher	Copernicus Publications
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