A11I-3107:
VIIRS Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) Products for Air Quality Applications
Monday, 15 December 2014
Amy K Huff, Pennsylvania State Univ, University Park, PA, United States, Hai Zhang, IMSG, College Park, MD, United States, Shobha Kondragunta, NOAA College Park, College Park, MD, United States and Istvan Laszlo, Univ Maryland, College Park, MD, United States
Abstract:
The air quality community uses satellite aerosol optical depth (AOD) for a variety of applications, including daily air quality forecasting, retrospective event analysis, and justification for Exceptional Events. AOD is suitable for ambient air quality applications because is related to particulate matter (e.g., PM2.5) concentrations in the atmosphere; higher values of AOD correspond to higher concentrations of particulate matter. AOD is useful for identifying and tracking areas of high PM2.5 concentrations that correspond to air quality events, such as wildfires, dust storms, or haze episodes. Currently, the air quality community utilizes AOD from the MODIS instrument on NASA’s polar-orbiting Terra and Aqua satellites and from NOAA’s GOES geostationary satellites (e.g, GASP). The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument on the Suomi-NPP satellite is making AOD measurements that are similar to MODIS AOD, but with higher spatial resolution. Two AOD products are available from VIIRS: the 750 m nadir resolution Intermediate Product (IP) and the 6 km resolution Environmental Data Record (EDR) product, which is aggregated from IP measurements. These VIIRS AOD products offer a substantial increase in spatial resolution compared to the MODIS AOD 3 km and 10 km AOD products, respectively. True color (RGB) imagery is also available from VIIRS as a decision aid for air quality applications. It serves as a complement to AOD measurements by providing visible information about areas of smoke, haze, and blowing dust in the atmosphere. Case studies of VIIRS AOD and RGB data for recent air quality events will be presented, with a focus on wildfires, and the relative pros and cons of the VIIRS AOD IP and EDR for air quality applications will be discussed in comparison to MODIS AOD products. Improvements to VIIRS aerosol products based on user feedback as part of the NOAA Satellite Air Quality Proving Ground (AQPG) will be outlined, and an overview of future outreach activities will be provided, including training events designed to build the capacity of users.
