The Aerosol Index and Land Cover Class Based Atmospheric Correction Aerosol Optical Depth Time Series 1982–2014 for the SMAC Algorithm

Atmospheric effects, especially aerosols, are a significant source of uncertainty for optical remote sensing of surface parameters, such as albedo. Also to achieve a homogeneous surface albedo time series, the atmospheric correction has to be homogeneous. However, a global homogeneous aerosol optical depth (AOD) time series covering several decades did not previously exist. Therefore, we have constructed an AOD time series 1982–2014 using aerosol index (AI) data from the satellite measurements of the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) and the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), together with the Solar zenith angle and land use classification data. It is used as input for the Simplified Method for Atmospheric Correction (SMAC) algorithm when processing the surface albedo time series CLARA-A2 SAL (the Surface ALbedo from the Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring project cLoud, Albedo and RAdiation data record, the second release). The surface reflectance simulations using the SMAC algorithm for different sets of satellite-based AOD data show that the aerosol-effect correction using the constructed TOMS/OMI based AOD data is comparable to using other satellite-based AOD data available for a shorter time range. Moreover, using the constructed TOMS/OMI based AOD as input for the atmospheric correction typically produces surface reflectance [-20]values closer to those obtained using in situ AOD values than when using other satellite-based AOD data