Combined use of satellite and surface observations to study aerosol optical depth in different regions of China

Aerosol optical depth (AOD) is one of essential atmosphere parameters for climate change assessment as well as for total ecological situation study. This study presents long-term data (2000–2017) on time-space distribution and trends in AOD over various ecological regions of China, received from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) (combined Dark Target and Deep Blue) and Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR), based on satellite Terra. Ground-based stations Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) were used to validate the data obtained. AOD data, obtained from two spectroradiometers, demonstrate the significant positive correlation relationships (r = 0.747), indicating that 55% of all data illustrate relationship among the parameters under study. Comparison of results, obtained with MODIS/MISR Terra and AERONET, demonstrate high relation (r = 0.869 - 0.905), while over 60% of the entire sampling fall within the range of the expected tolerance, established by MODIS and MISR over earth (±0.05 ± 0.15 × AOD(AERONET) and 0.05 ± 0.2 × AOD(AERONET)) with root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 0.097–0.302 and 0.067–0.149, as well as low mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.068–0.18 and 0.067–0.149, respectively. The MODIS search results were overestimated for AERONET stations with an average overestimation ranging from 14 to 17%, while there was an underestimate of the search results using MISR from 8 to 22%.