Intercomparing the Aerosol Optical Depth Using the Geostationary Satellite Sensors (AHI, GOCI and MI) from Yonsei AErosol Retrieval (YAER) Algorithm

Aerosol Optical Properties (AOPs) are retrieved using the geostationary satellite instruments such as Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI), Meteorological Imager (MI), and Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) through Yonsei AErosol Retrieval algorithm (YAER). In this study, the retrieved aerosol optical depths (AOD)s from each instrument were intercompared and validated with the ground-based sunphotometer AErosol Robotic NETwork (AERONET) data. As a result, the four AOD products derived from different instruments showed consistent results over land and ocean. However, AODs from MI and GOCI tend to be overestimated due to cloud contamination. According to the comparison results with AERONET, the percentage within expected errors (EE) are 36.3, 48.4, 56.6, and 68.2% for MI, GOCI, AHI-minimum reflectivity method (MRM), and AEI-estimated surface reflectance from shortwave Infrared (ESR) product, respectively. Since MI AOD is retrieved from a single visible channel, and adopts only one aerosol type by season, EE is relatively lower than other products. On the other hand, the AHI ESR is more accurate than the minimum reflectance method as used by GOCI, MI, and AHI MRM method in May and June when the vegetation is relatively abundant. These results are explained by the RMSE and the EE for each AERONET site. The ESR method result show to be better than the other satellite product in terms of EE for 15 out of 22 sites used for validation, and they are better than the other product for 13 sites in terms of RMSE. In addition, the error in observation time in each product is found by using characteristics of geostationary satellites. The absolute median biases at 00 to 06 Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) are 0.05, 0.09, 0.18, 0.18, 0.14, 0.09, and 0.10. The absolute median bias by observation time has appeared in MI and the only 00 UTC appeared in GOCI.