MODIS aerosol products: quality assessment and regional application case studies based on two years of operation

Aerosol parameters are retrieved daily at 10-km spatial resolution from the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) daytime data. These aerosol parameters include: aerosol optical thickness (AOT) at 0.47, 0.55 and 0.66 μm wavelengths over land, and at 0.47, 0.55, 0.66, 0.87, 1.2, 1.6, and 2.1 μm over ocean; Ångström exponent over land and ocean; and effective radii and the fraction of AOT contributed by the small size mode over ocean. The MODIS aerosol products have been largely validated globally and regionally, based on cross correlation with AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) Sun-photometer measurements. MODIS aerosol products are used to monitor aerosol global distributions both spatially and temporally. They are also operationally summarized on a global grid on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis, and used for radiative forcing calculations.