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Intercomparison and Validation of Satellite and Ground-Based Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) Retrievals over Six AERONET Sites in West Africa

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Abstract

The geographical and climatic conditions of West Africa make the region an essential area for the description of atmospheric aerosol optical properties across the globe. This study provides an intercomparison of aerosol optical depth (AOD440nm) retrievals from satellite-based CALIPSO, MISR, MODIS and OMI sensors against ground-based sun photometer (AERONET) measurements between 2004 and 2014 from six West African sites, which are Agoufou, Banizoumbou, Ouagadougou, Dakar, Djougou and Ilorin during the period 2004–2014. The analysis revealed that MODISSTD performed better with a high degree of correlation for the six study sites, the CALIPSO and MISR–AERONET comparisons showed strong correlations, and the MODISDB also indicated better correlations, as did the OMI–AERONET comparisons. The root mean square error, mean absolute error and root mean bias error were also computed. The CALIPSO instrument has the lowest RMSE and MAE values over Dakar, while the highest RMSE and MAE values were indicated by the CALIPSO and MODISDB sensors, respectively, over Ilorin. The MISR instrument showed good agreement over Dakar than the other instruments, while CALIPSO AOD retrievals were better than those from the other sensors in Banizoumbou and Ouagadogou. The expected error bounds computed for both MODIS retrievals showed that MODISSTD consistently outperformed MODISDB in all the study sites. High AOD values were averagely observed by the satellite sensors during the local dry months (December–February), due to high concentrations of dust aerosols. High AOD values were observed during March–May, due to the condensation of water vapor on aerosol leading to increase in size and optical depth.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the CALIPSO, MISR, MODIS and OMI science data (Multi-sensor Aerosol Product Sampling System) support team at NASA for the provision of the satellite data used in this study. Our profound gratitude also goes to NASA for providing the platform for AERONET data (https://aeronet.gsfc.nasa.gov/).

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  1. West Africa Science Service Centre on Climate and Adapted Land-Use (DRP-WACS), Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria

    K. O. Ogunjobi

  2. Department of Meteorology and Climate Science, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria

    P. O. Awoleye

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Ogunjobi, K.O., Awoleye, P.O. Intercomparison and Validation of Satellite and Ground-Based Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) Retrievals over Six AERONET Sites in West Africa. Aerosol Sci Eng 3, 32–47 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41810-019-00040-7

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