Journal article
Nighttime smoke aerosol optical depth over U.S. rural areas: First retrieval from VIIRS moonlight observations
Remote sensing of environment, Vol.267, p.112717
12/15/2021
DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2021.112717
Abstract
An algorithm for retrieving nighttime aerosol optical depth (AOD) from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Day-Night Band (DNB) observations of reflected moonlight is presented for rural areas during the western U.S. fire seasons. The algorithm uses the UNified and Linearized Vector Radiative Transfer Model (UNL-VRTM) with newly developed capabilities for considering lunar illuminations. Cloud and fire pixels are screened out by utilizing the radiance from the VIIRS Moderate-resolution Bands (M-Band) and the DNB. Rural and city pixels are classified based on a pre-calculated city light database. The surface spectral reflectance for DNB ranging from 342 to 1107 nm is estimated by a random forest approach, which is trained using the surface spectral reflectance from the existing spectral libraries. For the fire seasons of 2017 and 2020, the nighttime AOD retrieval is shown to play an indispensable role in describing the nonlinear diurnal movement of smoke transport and discerning the source of smoke plumes heretofore observable only in the daytime. The retrieved AOD values show good agreement with spatiotemporally collocated Aerosol Robotic NETwork (AERONET) and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) AOD values, with linear correlation coefficient values of ~0.96/0.95 and ~86%/69% of the AOD pairs falling in an uncertainty envelope of ±(0.085 + 0.10AOD), which is superior to AOD reanalysis from Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, version 2 (MERRA-2). These results affirm the significant potential of nighttime AOD to improve the analysis and forecast of regional to global biomass-burning aerosol distributions, filling a critical gap in the diurnal description of a key element of Earth's climate system.
•First nighttime AOD retrieval algorithm for rural areas from VIIRS lunar observation.•AOD retrievals agree well with the nighttime AERONET and CALIOP observations.•The retrieved nighttime AOD from VIIRS is much more reliable than that from MERRA-2.•Daytime AOD data from VIIRS is insufficient to depict smoke spatiotemporal variations.•Nighttime AOD mapping from VIIRS shed lights to the diurnal transport of smoke layers.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Nighttime smoke aerosol optical depth over U.S. rural areas: First retrieval from VIIRS moonlight observations
- Creators
- Meng Zhou - University of IowaJun Wang - University of IowaXi Chen - University of IowaXiaoguang Xu - University of Maryland, BaltimorePeter R Colarco - Goddard Space Flight CenterSteven D Miller - Colorado State UniversityJeffrey S Reid - United States Naval Research LaboratoryShobha Kondragunta - National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationDavid Matthew Giles - Goddard Space Flight CenterBrent Holben - Goddard Space Flight Center
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Remote sensing of environment, Vol.267, p.112717
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.rse.2021.112717
- ISSN
- 0034-4257
- eISSN
- 1879-0704
- Publisher
- Elsevier Inc
- Grant note
- DOI: 10.13039/100000006, name: Office of Naval Research, award: N00014-16-1-2040; DOI: 10.13039/100000104, name: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, award: 80NSSC18K0791
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 12/15/2021
- Academic Unit
- Civil and Environmental Engineering; Iowa Technology Institute; Physics and Astronomy; Chemical and Biochemical Engineering
- Record Identifier
- 9984186941302771
Metrics
125 Record Views