ACCURACY ASSESSMENT OF AQUA-MODIS AEROSOL OPTICAL DEPTH OVER COASTAL REGIONS: IMPORTANCE OF QUALITY FLAG AND SEA

Using data collected from 62 coastal stations worldwide from the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) from 2002-2011, accuracy assessments are made for coastal aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrieved from MODIS aboard the Aqua satellite. It is found that coastal AODs (at 550 nm) characterized respectively by the MODIS Dark Land (Land) surface algorithm, the Open Ocean (Ocean) algorithm, and AERONET all exhibit a log-normal distribution. After filtering by quality flags, the coastal MODIS AODs retrieved from the Land and Ocean algorithms are highly correlated with AERONET (with