Monitoring Airborne Dust from Source to Sink Using the e-Deep Blue Aerosol Products from VIIRS, MODIS, and Seawifs

Abstract:

Mineral dust sources are typically located in very bright, arid desert regions across the globe. In the past, aerosol retrieval algorithms were unable to properly handle these bright surfaces which lead to large, persistent data gaps. In order to eliminate these gaps, the Deep Blue algorithm was developed and first entered into the MODIS operational stream in Collection 5.1. Since then, the Deep Blue algorithm has evolved to retrieve not only over bright surfaces, but also vegetated surfaces. This updated algorithm has been named the enhanced Deep Blue (e-Deep Blue) algorithm and has been successfully applied to reflectances from the Sea-viewing, Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS, 1997-2010), Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS, 2000/2002-present), and now the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS, 2012-present) aboard the Suomi-NPP platform. This algorithm has been partnered with a new over-ocean algorithm for our SeaWiFS and VIIRS datasets.

Due to the broad swath of VIIRS, daily global coverage is achieved at higher spatial resolution compared to MODIS and SeaWiFS. Thus, the evolution of dust can be tracked from source to sink, across both land and ocean using these satellite products. We introduce the basics of the e-Deep Blue algorithm along with our preliminary VIIRS e-Deep Blue products, including aerosol optical thickness at 550nm and Ǻngström exponent. Validation with AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) data are also presented along with the intercomparisons between VIIRS Deep Blue and other satellite products.