Algorithm evaluation for polarimetric remote sensing of atmospheric aerosols

Abstract

Abstract. From a passive satellite remote sensing point of view, the richest set of information on aerosol properties can be obtained from instruments that measure both intensity and polarization of backscattered sunlight at multiple wavelengths and multiple viewing angles for one ground pixel. However, it is challenging to exploit this information at a global scale because complex algorithms are needed with many fit parameters (aerosol and land/ocean reflection), based on online radiative transfer models. So far, two such algorithms have demonstrated this capability at a global scale: the Generalized Retrieval of Atmosphere and Surface Properties (GRASP) algorithm and the Remote sensing of Trace gas and Aerosol Products (RemoTAP) algorithm. In this paper, we present a detailed comparison of the most recent versions of RemoTAP and GRASP. We evaluate both algorithms for synthetic observations, for real PARASOL (Polarization and Anisotropy of Reflectances for Atmospheric Science coupled with Observations from a Lidar) observations against AERONET (Aerosol Robotic Network) for common pixels, and for global PARASOL retrievals for the year 2008. For the aerosol optical depth (AOD) over land, both algorithms show a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.10 (at 550 nm). For single scattering albedo (SSA), both algorithms show a good performance in terms of RMSE (0.04), but RemoTAP has a smaller bias (0.002) compared to GRASP (0.021). For the Ångström exponent (AE), GRASP has a smaller RMSE (0.367) than RemoTAP (0.387), mainly caused by a small overestimate of AE at low values (large particles). Over ocean both algorithms perform very well. For AOD, RemoTAP has an RMSE of 0.057 and GRASP an even smaller RMSE of 0.047. For AE, the RMSEs of RemoTAP and GRASP are 0.285 and 0.224, respectively. Based on the AERONET comparison, we conclude that both algorithms show very similar overall performance, where both algorithms have stronger and weaker points. For the global data products, we find a root mean square difference (RMSD) between RemoTAP and GRASP AOD of 0.12 and 0.038 over land and ocean, respectively. The largest differences occur over the biomass burning region in equatorial Africa. The global mean values are virtually unbiased with respect to each other. For AE the RMSD between RemoTAP and GRASP is 0.33 over land and 0.23 over ocean. For SSA, we find much better agreement over land (bias = −0.01, RMSD = 0.043 for retrievals with AOD > 0.2) than over ocean (bias = 0.053, RMSD = 0.074). As expected, the differences increase towards low AOD, over both land and ocean. We also compared the GRASP and RemoTAP AOD and AE products against MODIS. For AOD over land, the agreement of either GRASP or RemoTAP with MODIS is worse than the agreement between the two PARASOL algorithms themselves. Over ocean, the agreement is very similar among the three products for AOD. For AE, the agreement between GRASP and RemoTAP is much better than the agreement of both products with MODIS. The agreement of the latest product versions with each other and with AERONET improved significantly compared to the previous version of the global products of GRASP and RemoTAP. The results demonstrate that the dedicated effort in algorithm development for multi-angle polarimetric (MAP) aerosol retrievals still leads to substantial improvement of the resulting aerosol products, and this is still an ongoing process.