Comparison of AVHRR aerosol optical depth production against CARSNET data in China

Abstract This study presents a dedicated evaluation of a newly released satellite aerosolproduct derived from Advanced Very-High-Resolution Radiometer(AVHRR) measurements by using the Deep Blue/ SOAR aerosolretrieval algorithm. Aerosolproduct from the Chinese AerosolNetwork (CARSNET) is used as the ground truthin the comparison. Comparison of AVHRR and CARSNET aerosol optical depth(AOD) products during 2006–2011 shows that the accuracyand precisionof AVHRR AOD demonstrate complicated spatial and seasonal dependence. First, AVHRR AOD is in good agreement with CARSNET AOD over eastern urban areas in China. 45%–78% of data points fall within the expected error range (±0.05 ± 0.25× AOD) over there. Second, in regions with natural vegetation cover and relatively clean environment conditions, low correlation is observed due to small AOD loadings (