Remote sensing of aerosol and radiation from geostationary satellites

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Abstract

The paper presents a high-level overview of current and future remote sensing of aerosol and shortwave radiation budget carried out at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from the US Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) series. The retrievals from the current GOES imagers are based on physical principles. Aerosol and radiation are estimated in separate processing from the comparison of satellite-observed reflectances derived from a single visible channel with those calculated from detailed radiative transfer. The radiative transfer calculation accounts for multiple scattering by molecules, aerosol and cloud and absorption by the major atmospheric gases. The retrievals are performed operationally every 30 min for aerosol and every hour for radiation for pixel sizes of 4-km (aerosol) and 15- to 50-km (radiation). Both retrievals estimate the surface reflectance as a byproduct from the time composite of clear visible reflectances assuming fixed values of the aerosol optical depth. With the launch of GOES-R NOAA will begin a new era of geostationary remote sensing. The Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) onboard GOES-R will offer capabilities for aerosol remote sensing similar to those currently provided by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flown on the NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) satellites. The ABI aerosol algorithm currently under development uses a multi-channel approach to estimate the aerosol optical depth and aerosol model simultaneously, both over water and land. Its design is strongly inspired by the MODIS aerosol algorithm. The ABI shortwave radiation budget algorithm is based on the successful GOES Surface and Insolation Product system of NOAA and the NASA Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES), Surface and Atmospheric Radiation Budget (SARB) algorithm. In all phases of the development, the algorithms are tested with proxy data generated from existing satellite observations and forward simulations. Final assessment of the performance will be made after the launch of GOES-R scheduled in 2012.

Introduction

Aerosols are ever-present and highly-varying constituents of our atmosphere. They play roles in many physical and chemical processes that shape the composition of the atmosphere and thereby affect cloud formation, visibility, and air quality. They interact both directly and indirectly with radiation and thus affect the amount of radiative energy reaching the surface and reflected to space. The shortwave part of the radiative energy at the surface (insolation) is an important component of the surface energy budget, and a necessary input to models of land-surface processes.

Real time monitoring of aerosol and surface insolation from Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) data have been routinely conducted at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS). The advantage of doing this from a geostationary platform is obvious for solar radiation budget, and that is the ability of resolving the diurnal cycle needed for an accurate estimate of the daily total insolation. Frequent observations of the same area available only from geostationary orbits are also important for air quality monitoring since they permit tracking the rapid movement of pollution.

Retrievals of aerosol optical depth and shortwave radiation budget from geostationary satellite measurements already have a long history; here only a few representative works will be cited. Many of these works take advantage of the nearly constant view geometry and/or the high temporal resolution provided by geostationary satellites. For example, Fraser et al. (1984) estimated aerosol optical depth (AOD) from the GOES imager over the eastern US using the difference in optical thickness between subsequent scenes and the fact that over dark surfaces (albedo <0.15 in the visible) the reflection increases as the optical depth increases. Knapp (2002) and Knapp et al. (2002) estimated the surface albedo from a series of consecutive GOES-8 images and retrieved the AOD for the US and over South America. Zhang et al. (2001) and Christopher et al. (2002) used a similar method to estimate the surface albedo and retrieved the AOD from high temporal resolution GOES-8 imager radiances and detailed radiative transfer calculations. Pinty et al., 2000a, Pinty et al., 2000b exploited the frequent (every 30 min) Meteosat observations to estimate the surface albedo and the aerosol optical depth (held constant throughout the day) simultaneously.

Observations of geostationary satellites are also used for characterizing the solar (shortwave) energy balance of our planet and the solar irradiance reaching the surface. Using a statistical method, Tarpley (1979) demonstrated that insolation can be determined from the Visible and Infrared Spin Scan Radiometer (VISSR) on GOES. Gautier et al. (1980) developed a physical model that accounted for molecular scattering and cloud extinction, and applied it to estimate insolation from GOES radiances. Pinker and Laszlo (1992) designed another physical method that in addition to gas absorption accounted for both aerosol and cloud extinction. Regional and global applicability of their model was demonstrated with GOES-5 VISSR data and with geostationary radiances from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP, Schiffer and Rossow, 1983) B3 data. The same algorithm was adopted by NOAA/NESDIS in the GOES Surface and Insolation Product (GSIP, Pinker et al., 2002). GOES data and models for estimating the radiation budget are also used for quantifying the effects of the various components of the atmosphere-surface system have on the energy balance. For example, Harrison and Minnis (1983) used GOES imager data to estimate the influence of clouds on the radiation budget. Futyan et al. (2005) employed high temporal resolution Meteosat 8 data to estimate the contribution of individual cloud types to cloud forcing. GOES-derived insolation data are also used in land data assimilation projects (Pinker et al., 2003). Because of the characteristics of the satellite instruments used in the studies mentioned above, the shortwave (SW) radiation budget is estimated from the narrowband measurements of the imagers. The first instrument dedicated to the direct measurement of the shortwave and longwave radiation budget from geostationary orbit is the Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget (GERB) instrument onboard the Meteosat-8 spacecraft operated by the European Organization for Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) (Harries et al., 2005). Currently there is no plan to have a similar instrument on the US GOES series of satellites, so the radiation budget must continue to be derived from the narrowband radiance measurements.

The potential for retrieving aerosol and radiation budget will be substantially improved with the new Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) scheduled to fly on the GOES-R satellite around 2012. ABI will have many more channels, higher spatial resolution, and faster imaging than the current GOES imager has. Image navigation, registration, and radiometric performance will also be improved, and ABI is expected to have on-board calibration of the visible channels (Schmit et al., 2005). Because of the similarity of its spectral channels to those of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS; King et al., 1992) flown on the NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) satellites, ABI will offer capabilities for aerosol remote sensing similar to those currently provided by MODIS. It is expected that ABI will also present a better estimate of the shortwave radiation budget. The increase in the number of channels should lead to a more accurate top of atmosphere reflected flux. By providing an improved constrain at the top, and more accurate aerosol and cloud information, the retrieval of the shortwave downward flux at the surface should also become more accurate.

The Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR) at NOAA/NESDIS is currently engaged in the development of algorithms for the retrieval of a suite of geophysical parameters from ABI on GOES-R. The current paper gives a high-level overview of these activities as they related to the remote sensing of aerosol and radiation budget. In the next sections, the main features of the ABI and those of the current imager are briefly compared, aerosol and insolation retrievals from the current GOES are summarized, and the ABI-based retrieval techniques currently under development at STAR for aerosol and radiation budget are described.

Section snippets

ABI and the current imager

The imager on the current GOES (GOES 12) has one band in the visible (0.65 μm) and four bands (3.9, 6.5, 10.7, and 13.3 μm) in the infrared; it has no near-infrared channels. The nominal subsatellite instantaneous geometric field of view (IGFOV) is 1 km for the visible channel, and 4 km for the infrared channels, except for the 13.3-μm band that has an IGFOV of 8 km. Remote sensing of most geophysical parameters, particularly the retrieval of aerosol optical depth, requires accurate measurements of

Aerosol retrieval for the current GOES satellites

Aerosol optical depth has been routinely retrieved at NESDIS/STAR for the contiguous US (CONUS) from the GOES-East satellite located over the equator at 75° W. The product is known as the GOES Aerosol and Smoke Product (GASP). It includes retrievals for nominal 4-km pixels every 30 min approximately between 12 UTC and 21 UTC at 15 and 45 min after the hour during daytime. The technique has been described in detail by Knapp (2002) and by Knapp et al. (2002); only the main features of the algorithm

Radiation budget from current GOES

The shortwave radiation budget has been retrieved from GOES measurements operationally at NOAA/NESDIS since January 1996. The product is known as the GOES Surface and Insolation Product (GSIP). The GSIP system provides shortwave radiation budget data for the US (CONUS; 24°N–54°N, 66°W–126°W) every daytime hour at a spatial resolution of ∼50 km. Images from the GSIP CONUS system can be viewed at http://www.orbit.nesdis.noaa.gov/smcd/emb/gsip/index.htm. The retrieval is based on the work of Pinker

Summary

Presently, aerosol optical depth and shortwave radiation budgets are estimated operationally from the visible imager channel of the GOES satellites. The aerosol retrievals are used in air quality studies, verification of model predictions of pollution (particular matter), planning field campaigns, and aviation, to name a few uses. Those of the radiation budget serve as inputs of radiative forcing in models of land surface processes and coral bleaching.

Retrievals from the ABI instrument on the

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the NOAA/NESDIS GOES-R Risk Reduction and Algorithm Working Group Programs and by the NOAA/NESDIS GOES Product Systems Development and Implementation (G-PSDI) program. Thanks are due to Paul Menzel, former NESDIS/ORA Chief Scientist and to Don Gray, G-PSDI Program Manager for their encouragement and support, and to two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments on the manuscript. Although this work was internally reviewed, the views, opinions, and

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