Evaluation and comparison of MODIS Collection 6.1 aerosol optical depth against AERONET over regions in China with multifarious underlying surfaces

Abstract In this study, we evaluated the performance of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Collection 6.1 (C6.1) aerosol optical depth (AOD) products and compared them with the Collection 6 (C6) products over regions in China with multifarious underlying surfaces during 2001–2016. The AOD retrievals were validated against 20 AERONET (V3) sites, and the results show that the correlation coefficient (R) for dark target (DT) retrievals in C6.1 is 0.946, while the fraction within the expected error (EE) can be considered relatively low at only 54.03%. Deep blue (DB) retrievals in C6.1 have a slightly lower R value (0.931), but the other criteria are superior to DT. Comparing the results over urban and vegetation areas in C6.1, the overall quality of the DB retrievals is better than the DT retrievals in urban areas. The performance of DT is significantly superior to DB in the low elevation vegetation (LEV) areas. For the high elevation vegetation (HEV) areas, DB performs integrally better than DT. In the spatial distribution aspect in C6.1, most of the DB AOD values are less than those of DT, and the relationship between DT and DB varies with the land cover types and surface reflectance. For the AOD coverage in C6.1, DT retrievals with high coverage mainly distribute in east-central China. However, the effects of high surface reflectance lead to low AOD coverage in the southwest. In contrast, the AOD coverage of DB tends to be high in areas where the main land cover type is arid or semiarid and tends to be low in areas affected by snow. In terms of the comparison between C6.1 and C6, the overestimation of DT over urban areas in C6 is effectively mitigated in C6.1. However, a nearly systematic decline in DT is discovered in C6.1 as well. With respect to DB, consistent AOD coverage distribution is observed, with only subtle distinction. The AOD coverage of DB in C6.1 appears higher than that in C6 in the middle, south, and northeast of China. The quality of the DB retrievals in C6.1 increases slightly compared to C6, and the major improvements are observed for the coarse aerosol particles and for high elevation areas at surface reflectance from 0.11 to 0.2, respectively.

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