Advanced Himawari Imager Aerosol Optical Depth Research Articles

Preliminary Retrieval and Validation of Aerosol Optical Depths from FY-4B Advanced Geostationary Radiation Imager Images

Fengyun-4B (FY-4B) is the latest Chinese next-generation geostationary meteorological satellite. The Advanced Geostationary Radiation Imager (AGRI) aboard FY-4B is equipped with 15 spectral bands, from visible to infrared, suitable for aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrieval. In this study, an overland AOD retrieval algorithm was developed for the FY-4B AGRI. Considering the large directional variation in the FY-4B AGRI reflectances, a bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) database was built, through which to estimate land surface reflectance/albedo. Seasonal aerosol models, based on four geographical regions in China, were developed between 2016 and 2022 using AERONET aerosol products, to improve their applicability to regional distribution differences and seasonal variations in aerosol types. AGRI AODs were retrieved using this new method over China from September 2022 to August 2023 and validated against ground-based measurements. The AGRI, Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI), and Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) official land aerosol products were also evaluated for comparison purposes. The results showed that the AGRI AOD retrievals were highly consistent with the AERONET AOD measurements, with a correlation coefficient (R) of 0.88, root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.14, and proportion that met an expected error (EE) of 65.04%. Intercomparisons between the AGRI AOD and other operational AOD products showed that the AGRI AOD retrievals achieved better performance results than the AGRI, AHI, and MODIS official AOD products. Moreover, the AGRI AOD retrievals showed high spatial integrity and stable performance at different times and regions, as well as under different aerosol loadings and characteristics. These results demonstrate the robustness of the new aerosol retrieval method and the potential of FY-4B AGRI measurements for the monitoring of aerosols with high accuracy and temporal resolutions.

Diurnal time representation of MODIS, VIIRS, MISR, and AHI over Asia and Oceania

Retrievals of satellite aerosol optical depth (AOD) products are used for studies of air pollution, energy balance, and climate change. However, few studies have evaluated the diurnal time representation (DTR) of satellite AOD products. In this study, we proposed a statistically valid threshold method to investigate the DTR of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR), and Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) AOD products by comparing their retrievals to the daily AERONET AOD values and explored the ability of AHI and AERONET to capture daily aerosol variability at 54 sites in Asia and Oceania from July 2015 to December 2019. For polar-orbiting satellites, based on collocations with AERONET measurements, MISR-derived AOD showed high consistency with daily average AERONET AOD, with a correlation coefficient (R) of 0.94 and 80.85% matchups falling into the envelopes of expected error (EE, ± (0.05 + 0.15 × AODAERONET)). Compared with single MODIS products, a combination of satellite data from the Terra and Aqua MODIS dark target (DT) algorithm might obtain a dataset with better DTR (R = 0.94 and %Within EE = 72.10). The satellite-retrieved AOD did a good job to represent the daily mean AERONET AOD, because AERONET AOD averaged within a ± 30 min time window of different satellite overpasses closely mirrored the daily mean AERONET AOD. Furthermore, the seasonal average diurnal variations (SADV) of AERONET AOD were changing insignificant, except for the urban coverage area in the Southern Hemisphere and equatorial climate. For geostationary satellite, the DTR of AHI was relatively poorer in comparison to the other sensors (R = 0.84, %Within EE = 58.00), and AHI AOD was seriously underestimated in South Asia and overestimated in Oceania. Besides, the SADVs of AHI AOD presented several patterns summarized as wave type, unimodal type, stable fluctuation type, and other types, which meant that AHI AOD retrievals did not accurately capture the diurnal variability of aerosols. This study provides a reference for the aerosol community to select satellite AOD products with appropriate DTR.

Improving aerosol optical depth retrievals from Himawari-8 with ensemble learning enhancement: Validation over Asia

The Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) onboard the Himawari-8 spacecraft from the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) enables retrieval of aerosol optical depth (AOD) with high spatio-temporal resolution. This work demonstrates that the latest version of Level-3 AHI AOD product is affected by an overall underestimation against ground measurements from 98 sunphotometer sites over Asia, with site-average R2 and mean bias error (MBE) of 0.54 and − 0.10, respectively. The MBE varies from −0.23 to 0.03 over land, depending on site, and averages 0.06 over water. To correct these errors, an XGBoost model has been developed based on the AHI AOD, as well as meteorological quantities and geographic information from the ERA5 ECMWF reanalysis, a digital elevation model (DEM), and ground-based AOD measurements obtained in 2018. After application of this correction algorithm, the testing dataset indicates that R2 and the fraction of data included within the expected error (EE) envelope (±15%) are 0.86 and 74.7%, respectively, thus representing substantial improvement compared to the corresponding uncorrected results of 0.59 and 42.2%. The optimal XGBoost also demonstrates a good generalization ability because 69.5% of the corrected AOD falls within the EE envelope when applying the model to AHI data from 2019. The model's Feature Importance analysis shows that, besides the raw AHI AOD, geographic coordinates, surface albedo, and atmospheric water vapor contribute significantly to the correction model. The AOD difference map (corrected AOD minus raw AHI AOD) reveals that the XGBoost model improves AOD values considerably for land areas by 0.14, 0.10, 0.09, and 0.11 for MAM, JJA, SON and DJF, respectively.

Variation of Aerosol Optical Depth Measured by Sun Photometer at a Rural Site near Beijing during the 2017–2019 Period

In recent years, the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region has become one of the worst areas for haze pollution in China. Sun photometers are widely used for aerosol optical property monitoring due to the advantages of fully automatic acquisition, simple maintenance, standardization of data processing, and low uncertainty. Research sites are mostly concentrated in cities, while the long-term analysis of aerosol optical depth (AOD) for the pollution transmission channel in rural Beijing is still lacking. Here, we obtained an AOD monitoring dataset from August 2017 to March 2019 using the ground-based CE-318 sun photometer at the Gucheng meteorological observation site in southwest Beijing. These sun photometer AOD data were used for the ground-based validation of MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) and AHI (Advanced Himawari Imager) AOD data. It was found that MODIS and AHI can reflect AOD variation trends by sun photometer on daily, monthly, and seasonal scales. The original AOD measurements of the sun photometer show good correlations with satellite observations by MODIS (R = 0.97), and AHI (R = 0.89), respectively, corresponding to their different optimal spatial and temporal windows for matching with collocated satellite ground pixels. However, MODIS is less stable for aerosols of different concentrations and particle sizes. Most of the linear regression intercepts between the satellite and the photometer are less than 0.1, indicating that the errors due to surface reflectance in the inversion are small, and the slope is least biased (AHI: slope = 0.91, MODIS: slope = 0.18) in the noon period (11 a.m.–2 p.m.) and most biased in summer (AHI: slope = 0.77, MODIS: slope = 1.31), probably due to errors in the aerosol model. The daily and seasonal variation trends between CE-318 AOD measurements in the Gucheng site and fine particulate observations from the national air quality site nearby were also compared and investigated. In addition, a typical haze–dust complex pollution event in North China was analyzed and the changes in AOD during the pollution event were quantified. In processing, we use sun photometer and satellite AOD data in combination with meteorological and PM data. Overall, this paper has implications for the study of AOD evolution patterns at different time scales, the association between PM2.5 concentrations and AOD changes, and pollution monitoring.

Improved Bi-Angle Aerosol Optical Depth Retrieval Algorithm from AHI Data Based on Particle Swarm Optimization

The Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) aboard the Himawari-8, a new generation of geostationary meteorological satellite, has high-frequency observation, which allows it to effectively capture atmospheric variations. In this paper, we have proposed an Improved Bi-angle Aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrieval Algorithm (IBAA) from AHI data. The algorithm ignores the aerosol effect at 2.3 μm and assumes that the aerosol optical depth does not change within one hour. According to the property that the reflectivity ratio K of two observations at 2.3 μm does not change with wavelength, we constructed the equation for two observations of AHI 0.47 μm band. Then Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) was used to solve the nonlinear equation. The algorithm was applied to the AHI observations over the Chinese mainland (80°–135°E, 15°–60°N) between April and June 2019 and hourly AOD at 0.47 μm was retrieved. We validated IBAA AOD against the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) sites observation, including surrounding regions as well as the Chinese mainland, and compared it with the AHI L3 V030 hourly AOD product. Validation with AERONET of 2079 matching points shows a correlation coefficient R = 0.82, root-mean-square error RMSE = 0.27, and more than 62% AOD retrieval results within the expected error of ±(0.05 + 0.2 × AODAERONET). Although IBAA does not perform very well in the case of coarse-particle aerosols, the comparison and validation demonstrate it can estimate AHI AOD with good accuracy and wide coverage over land on the whole.

Relating geostationary satellite measurements of aerosol optical depth (AOD) over East Asia to fine particulate matter (PM<sub>2.5</sub>): insights from the KORUS-AQ aircraft campaign and GEOS-Chem model simulations

Abstract. Geostationary satellite measurements of aerosol optical depth (AOD) over East Asia from the Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI) and Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) instruments can augment surface monitoring of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) air quality, but this requires better understanding of the AOD–PM2.5 relationship. Here we use the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model to analyze the critical variables determining the AOD–PM2.5 relationship over East Asia by simulation of observations from satellite, aircraft, and ground-based datasets. This includes the detailed vertical aerosol profiling over South Korea from the KORUS-AQ aircraft campaign (May–June 2016) with concurrent ground-based PM2.5 composition, PM10, and AERONET AOD measurements. The KORUS-AQ data show that 550 nm AOD is mainly contributed by sulfate–nitrate–ammonium (SNA) and organic aerosols in the planetary boundary layer (PBL), despite large dust concentrations in the free troposphere, reflecting the optically effective size and high hygroscopicity of the PBL aerosols. We updated SNA and organic aerosol size distributions in GEOS-Chem to represent aerosol optical properties over East Asia by using in situ measurements of particle size distributions from KORUS-AQ. We find that SNA and organic aerosols over East Asia have larger size (number median radius of 0.11 µm with geometric standard deviation of 1.4) and 20 % larger mass extinction efficiency as compared to aerosols over North America (default setting in GEOS-Chem). Although GEOS-Chem is successful in reproducing the KORUS-AQ vertical profiles of aerosol mass, its ability to link AOD to PM2.5 is limited by under-accounting of coarse PM and by a large overestimate of nighttime PM2.5 nitrate. The GOCI–AHI AOD data over East Asia in different seasons show agreement with AERONET AODs and a spatial distribution consistent with surface PM2.5 network data. The AOD observations over North China show a summer maximum and winter minimum, opposite in phase to surface PM2.5. This is due to low PBL depths compounded by high residential coal emissions in winter and high relative humidity (RH) in summer. Seasonality of AOD and PM2.5 over South Korea is much weaker, reflecting weaker variation in PBL depth and lack of residential coal emissions.

Comparison of different methods of determining land surface reflectance for AOD retrieval

Determining land surface reflectance (LSR) is important for satellite retrieval of aerosol optical depth (AOD). Many studies have focused on the development of AOD retrieval through using different land surface reflectance determination algorithms. However, there is still lack of a comprehensive comparison among those algorithms. In this study, AOD retrieval algorithms with different land surface reflectance assumptions were compared and analyzed using Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) data. The results demonstrate that the AOD retrieved by the algorithm considering the land surface bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) effects (Method 3) has a higher accuracy than that based on the dark target (Method 1) and second lowest reflectance (Method 2) methods. The overall correlation coefficient between the AOD retrievals considering land surface BRDF and AERONET AOD measurements is 0.93 and the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) is 0.13. In addition, there are 68.91 % of AOD matchups falling within the expected error (±0.05 ± 0.2 × AOD AERONET). Method 3 shows a more robust performance than the other two methods for different seasons, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) values and scattering angles. It also shows the advantages of AOD retrieval in urban regions with relatively high LSR. The AOD retrievals based on Method 2 show the best agreement with MODIS 1 km AOD product, while Method 1 AODs are much closer to the MODIS 10 km AODs. The differences of annual average values of AHI AOD retrievals using different algorithms can be high to 0.13 at 11:00 (Beijing Time) over the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region, which could cause a 23.6Wm-2 discrepancy when calculating the direct aerosol radiative effect (DARE) at the bottom of the atmosphere.

Spatiotemporal relationship between Himawari-8 hourly columnar aerosol optical depth (AOD) and ground-level PM2.5 mass concentration in mainland China

Himawari-8 aerosol products have been widely used to estimate the near-surface hourly PM2.5 concentrations due to the high temporal resolution. However, most studies focus on the evaluation model. As the foundation of the estimation, the relationship between near-surface PM2.5 and columnar aerosol optical depth (AOD) has not been comprehensively investigated. In this study, we investigate the relationship between PM2.5 and advanced Himawari imager (AHI) AOD for 2016–2018 across mainland China on different spatial and temporal scales and the factors affecting the association. We calculated the Pearson correlation coefficients and the PM2.5/AOD ratio as the analysis indicators in 345 cities and 14 urban agglomerations based on the collocations of PM2.5 and AHI AOD. From 9:00 to 17:00 local time, the PM2.5-AOD correlation become significantly stronger while The PM2.5/AOD ratio markedly decrease in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, and Chengyu regions. The strongest correlation is between 12:00 and 14:00 LT (at noon) and between 13:00 and 17:00 LT (afternoon), respectively. The ratio in a day shows an obvious unimodal mode, and the peak occurred at around 10:00 or 11:00 LT, especially in autumn and winter. There is a pronounced variation of the PM2.5-AOD relationship in a week during the winter. Moreover, there are the strongest correlation and the largest ratio for most urban agglomerations during the winter. We also find that PM2.5 and AOD are not always correlated under different meteorological conditions and precursor concentrations. Furthermore, for the scattering-dominated fine-mode aerosol, there is a high correlation and a low ratio between PM2.5 and AOD. The correlation between PM2.5 and AHI AOD significantly increases with increasing the number of AOD retrievals on a day. The findings will provide meaningful information and important implications for satellite retrieval of hourly PM2.5 concentration and its exposure estimation in China, especially in some urban agglomerations.

Evaluation and possible uncertainty source analysis of JAXA Himawari-8 aerosol optical depth product over China

The latest version of JAXA aerosol optical depth (AOD) product over China in 2018 from Himawari-8 Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) was evaluated, including validation with global AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) and China Aerosol Research Network (CARSNET) ground-based observations, and comparison against the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) AOD product. Considering both the quality and quantity of the AHI AOD product, the Quality Assurance Flags (QA_Flags) with “good” and “very good” are chosen for evaluation and analysis. AHI and MODIS AOD products are well correlated and the spatial distributions are similar, even though underestimation from AHI AOD in the morning and overestimation in the afternoon are found when compared with MODIS AOD. Validation with ground-based observations also indicates a good correlation (R > 0.75) when sparsely vegetated surfaces are excluded. It is found that 52.74% fall below the expected error (EE) at 10:30 BJT when compared with CARSNET which has more vegetation sites and 56.91% fall above the EE at 13:30 BJT when compared with AERONET which has more urban sites. The slope of the fit line is around 1.0 for all matched sites, while the scatter plots have divided into two parts as the performance of AHI AOD depends on the observation times and surface types. The temporal variations of AHI and AERONET AODs show that the overestimation from AHI AOD occurs in the afternoon for barren surface while the underestimation occurs in the morning for well-vegetation surface. For monthly variation, the overestimation of AHI AOD is found over Northern China in winter and those seasons when the plants are growing or disappearing rapidly.The assumption that the surface reflectance remains unchanged and the solar geometries are nearly identical within a month causes the underestimation of surface reflectance and thus contributes to the AHI AOD overestimation for low vegetation and bare surfaces in autumn and winter. While over the vegetated surfaces, neglecting the background aerosols causes overestimation of the surface reflectance, and thus leads to underestimation of AHI AOD. The difference between backward and forward scattering contributes to the larger JAXA AHI AOD error in the afternoon, which aggravates positive deviation for barren land sites and alleviates the underestimation for vegetation surface types in the afternoon. In addition, aerosol model selection and cloud contamination also affect the accuracy of aerosol products, especially when AOD is large.Overall, the JAXA AHI AOD provides a high temporal resolution and relative reliable aerosol product for environmental research. The analysis on characteristics and uncertainty sources in this study are to further enhance the understanding of the geostationary satellite aerosol products for applications, and provide useful information for improving the aerosol retrieval algorithm in future.

Retrieval of Aerosol Optical Depth from the Himawari-8 Advanced Himawari Imager data: Application over Beijing in the summer of 2016

Abstract Himawari-8, a new generation geostationary satellite, with the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) providing Full Disk observation with high temporal resolution (10 min) exhibits prominent advantage in monitoring aerosols over East Asia region. The AHI has 16 channels from 0.46 to 13.3 to capture visible and infrared spectral data. In this paper, we developed a regional algorithm to retrieve the Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) over Beijing area based on the AHI visible and short-wave infrared (SWIR) data from June to August 2016. The AHI surface reflectance at 0.46, 0.64, 0.86 and 2.3 μm channel was obtained using the lowest gas-corrected reflectance based on the three-month top of the atmosphere (TOA) data. The algorithm employed superposing technique and linear regression to iteratively train the AHI surface reflectance, and built optimal surface reflectance relationships between visible and SWIR bands with three Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) classifications over Beijing area. Based on these surface reflectance relationships, the AHI AOD data were retrieved through the radiation transmission function. The AOD products from the AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) ground measurement, the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) official AHI were used to evaluate the performance of our AOD retrievals. At diurnal scale, more than 66% of AHI AOD retrievals fell within the EE in the afternoon, which indicated that these retrievals could capture the regional aerosol variability over Beijing area. In contrast, the AHI JAXA AOD product significantly overestimated aerosol loadings. The low AOD biases (13:00–16:00) under low aerosol conditions from our retrieval algorithm demonstrated that the AHI surface reflectance assumptions are available. However, AHI retrievals in XiangHe overestimated AOD under high aerosol conditions, which indicated that the urban aerosol model is inappropriate over this site. In addition, our AHI AOD algorithm was only applied over Beijing area in the summer of 2016. The retrieval time-independence in this algorithm has not been estimated in fall and winter when NDVI is lower. Future study will investigate this surface algorithm at larger temporal and spatial scales.

Evaluation of Himawari-8/AHI, MERRA-2, and CAMS Aerosol Products over China

Reliable aerosol optical depth (AOD) data with high spatial and temporal resolutions are needed for research on air pollution in China. AOD products from the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) onboard the geostationary Himawari-8 satellite and reanalysis datasets make it possible to capture diurnal variations of aerosol loadings. However, due to the different retrieval methods, their applicability may vary with different space and time. Thus, in this study, taking the measured AOD at the Aerosol Robotic NETwork (AERONET) stations as the gold standard, the performance of the latest AHI hourly AOD product (i.e., L3 AOD) was evaluated and then compared with that of two reanalysis AOD datasets offered by Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2) and Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), respectively, covering from July 2015 to December 2017 over China. For all the matchups, AHI AOD shows the highest robustness with a high correlation (R) of 0.82, low root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 0.23, and moderate mean absolute relative error (MARE) of 0.56. Although MERRA-2 and CAMS products both have lower R values (0.74, 0.72) and higher RMSE (0.28, 0.26), the former is slightly better than the latter. Accuracy of AOD products could be mainly affected by the pollution level and less affected by particle size distribution. Comparisons among these AOD products imply that AHI AOD is more reliable in regions with high pollution levels, such as central and eastern China, while in the northern and western part, MERRA-2 AOD seems more satisfying. The performance of all the three AOD products presents a significant diurnal variety, as indicated by the highest accuracy in the morning for AHI and at noon for reanalysis data. Moreover, due to various pollution distribution patterns and meteorological conditions, there are distinct seasonal characteristics in the performance of AOD products for different regions.

Hourly PM2.5 Estimation over Central and Eastern China Based on Himawari-8 Data

In this study, an improved geographically and temporally weighted regression (IGTWR) model for the estimation of hourly PM2.5 concentration data was applied over central and eastern China in 2017, based on Himawari-8 Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) data. A generalized distance based on the longitude, latitude, day, hour, and land use type was constructed. AHI aerosol optical depth, surface relative humidity, and boundary layer height (BLH) data were used as independent variables to retrieve the hourly PM2.5 concentrations at 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, 4:00, 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, and 8:00 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). The model fitting and cross-validation performance were satisfactory. For the model fitting set, the correlation coefficient of determination (R2) between the measured and predicted PM2.5 concentrations was 0.886, and the root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 437,642 samples was only 12.18 µg/m3. The tenfold cross-validation results of the regression model were also acceptable; the correlation coefficient R2 of the measured and predicted results was 0.784, and the RMSE was 20.104 µg/m3, which is only 8 µg/m3 higher than that of the model fitting set. The spatial and temporal characteristics of the hourly PM2.5 concentration in 2017 were revealed. The model also achieved stable performance under haze and dust conditions.

Applying the Dark Target aerosol algorithm with Advanced Himawari Imager observations during the KORUS-AQ field campaign

Abstract. For nearly 2 decades we have been quantitatively observing the Earth's aerosol system from space at one or two times of the day by applying the Dark Target family of algorithms to polar-orbiting satellite sensors, particularly MODIS and VIIRS. With the launch of the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) and the Advanced Baseline Imagers (ABIs) into geosynchronous orbits, we have the new ability to expand temporal coverage of the traditional aerosol optical depth (AOD) to resolve the diurnal signature of aerosol loading during daylight hours. The Korean–United States Air Quality (KORUS-AQ) campaign taking place in and around the Korean peninsula during May–June 2016 initiated a special processing of full-disk AHI observations that allowed us to make a preliminary adoption of Dark Target aerosol algorithms to the wavelengths and resolutions of AHI. Here, we describe the adaptation and show retrieval results from AHI for this 2-month period. The AHI-retrieved AOD is collocated in time and space with existing AErosol RObotic NETwork stations across Asia and with collocated Terra and Aqua MODIS retrievals. The new AHI AOD product matches AERONET, and the standard MODIS product does as well, and the agreement between AHI and MODIS retrieved AOD is excellent, as can be expected by maintaining consistency in algorithm architecture and most algorithm assumptions. Furthermore, we show that the new product approximates the AERONET-observed diurnal signature. Examining the diurnal patterns of the new AHI AOD product we find specific areas over land where the diurnal signal is spatially cohesive. For example, in Bangladesh the AOD increases by 0.50 from morning to evening, and in northeast China the AOD decreases by 0.25. However, over open ocean the observed diurnal cycle is driven by two artifacts, one associated with solar zenith angles greater than 70∘ that may be caused by a radiative transfer model that does not properly represent the spherical Earth and the other artifact associated with the fringes of the 40∘ glint angle mask. This opportunity during KORUS-AQ provides encouragement to move towards an operational Dark Target algorithm for AHI. Future work will need to re-examine masking including snow mask, re-evaluate assumed aerosol models for geosynchronous geometry, address the artifacts over the ocean, and investigate size parameter retrieval from the over-ocean algorithm.

Assimilating Himawari-8 AHI aerosol observations with a rapid-update data assimilation system

Himawari-8, a next-generation geostationary meteorological satellite, is equipped with the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) that provides full-disk images of Earth every 10 min for 16 observation bands from visible to infrared. In this study, the capability to assimilate AHI Aerosol optical depth (AOD) has been developed within the Gridpoint Statistical Interpolation (GSI) system with an hourly cycling configuration and application to a dust storm over East Asia during 5–7 May 2017. Analyses were produced hourly, and 24 h forecasts were produced every 6 h within the Weather Research and Forecasting with Chemistry model. It was found that the mean bias and root-mean-square error (RMSE) after data assimilation is obviously reduced (by about 30%) when compared to the control experiment which didn't assimilate any observations during the dust storm period, which verified the positive effects of AOD data assimilation systems. In addition, aerosol analyses and forecasts with AOD data assimilation were substantially improved when compared to independent AOD observations from AERONET sites. Therefore, the AOD data assimilation system developed here could be used as a tool to generate better dust storm forecasts.

Assessment of Himawari-8 AHI Aerosol Optical Depth Over Land

This study conducted the first comprehensive assessment of the aerosol optical depth (AOD) product retrieved from the observations by the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) onboard the Himawari-8 satellite. The AHI Level 3 AOD (Version 3.0) was evaluated using the collocated Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) level 2.0 direct sun AOD measurements over the last three years (May 2016–December 2018) at 58 selected AERONET sites. A comprehensive comparison between AHI and AERONET AOD was carried out, which yielded a correlation coefficient (R) of 0.82, a slope of 0.69, and a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.16. The results indicate a good agreement between AHI and AERONET AOD, while revealing that the AHI aerosol retrieval algorithm tends to underestimate the atmospheric aerosol load. In addition, the expected uncertainty of AHI Level 3 AOD (Version 3.0) is ± (0.1 + 0.3 × AOD). Furthermore, the performance of the AHI aerosol retrieval algorithm exhibits regional variation. The best performance is reported over East Asia (R 0.86), followed by Southeast Asia (R 0.79) and Australia (R 0.35). The monthly and seasonal comparisons between AHI and AERONET show that the best performance is found in summer (R 0.93), followed by autumn (R 0.84), winter (R 0.82), and spring (R 0.76). The worst performance was observed in March (R 0.75), while the best performance appeared in June (R 0.94). The variation in the annual mean AHI AOD on the scale of hours demonstrates that AHI can perform continuous (no less than ten hours) aerosol monitoring.

Himawari-8/AHI and MODIS Aerosol Optical Depths in China: Evaluation and Comparison

The geostationary earth orbit satellite—Himawari-8 loaded with the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) has greatly enhanced our capacity of dynamic monitoring in Asia–Pacific area. The Himawari-8/AHI hourly aerosol product is a promising complementary source to the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) daily aerosol product for near real-time air pollution observations. However, a comprehensive evaluation of AHI aerosol optical depth (AOD) is still limited, and the difference in performances of AHI and MODIS remains uncertain. In this study, we evaluated the Himawari-8/AHI Level 3 Version 3.0 and MODIS Collection 6.1 Deep Blue AOD products over China against AOD measurements from AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) sites in a spatiotemporal comparison of the products from February 2018 to January 2019. Results showed that AHI AOD achieved a moderate agreement with AERONET with a correlation coefficient of 0.75 and a root-mean-square-error of 0.26, which was slightly inferior to MODIS. The retrieval accuracy was spatially and temporally varied in AHI AOD, with higher accuracies for XiangHe and Lulin sites as well as in the morning and during the summer. The dependency analysis further revealed that the bias in AHI AOD was strongly dependent on aerosol loading and influenced by the Ångström Exponent and NDVI while those for MODIS appeared to be independent of all variables. Fortunately, the biases in AHI AOD could be rectified using a random forest model that contained the appropriate variables to produce sufficiently accurate results with cross-validation R of 0.92 and RMSE of 0.15. With these adjustments, AHI AOD will continue to have great potential in characterizing precise dynamic aerosol variations and air quality at a fine temporal resolution.

A Dark Target Method for Himawari-8/AHI Aerosol Retrieval: Application and Validation

Himawari-8 (H8), as a geostationary satellite, observing the full disk image of the earth per 10 min, is a very powerful tool to investigate atmospheric aerosol temporal variations. The advanced himawari imager (AHI) onboard H8 has several spectral bands similar with those of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). Aerosol optical depth (AOD) is thus possible to be retrieved from AHI data using the dark target (DT) method of MODIS. Based on a statistics study of infrared bands of these two satellite instruments, we found that the difference of shortwave infrared bands between AHI ( $2.3~\mu \text{m}$ ) and MODIS ( $2.12~\mu \text{m}$ ) in DT area can be ignored for our purpose. Meanwhile, for AHI sensor, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) calculated from $0.86~\mu \text{m}$ (instead of traditional $1.24~\mu \text{m}$ ) and $2.3~\mu \text{m}$ can also be a good indicator of surface spectral reflectance. Therefore, first, a new NDVI of AHI sensor is proposed in this paper to improve the estimation of surface reflectance based on DT retrieval method. Then, AOD over DT area was retrieved using a lookup table strategy and tested based on AHI observation over China region from August 2015 to July 2016. All retrieved results are validated against ground-based measurements of the aerosol robotic network and the sun–sky radiometer observation network. The coincident AOD results between AHI retrieval- and ground-based network measurements show good agreements with $R^{2}$ of 0.81. The intercomparison between AHI and MODIS DT AOD products also shows a good agreement with $R^{2}$ of 0.92.

Validation of Himawari-8 aerosol optical depth retrievals over China

High temporal resolution (every 10 min) aerosol observations are rarely provided by satellite sensors. The Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) aboard Himawari-8 can provide aerosol optical depth (AOD) over China with this frequency. The sensor provides great opportunity to retrieve the particle matter near the ground and improve air quality modeling using the aerosol products. However, there is still lack of quality validation about AHI AOD. A comprehensive research was conducted to evaluate the performance of AHI aerosol products based on sixteen sun-photometers stations in AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) and Sun–Sky Radiometer Observation Network (SONET) over China. The overall comparison of AHI AOD and ground AOD shows a high correlation (R2 = 0.67). However, there is only 55% of AHI AOD falling in the expected error envelops (±0.05 ± 0.2*AOD ground). AOD bias between AHI AOD and ground AOD increases with the AOD magnitude. The accuracy of AHI AOD is also highly depend on seasons and surface land cover types. Best performance of AHI aerosol retrievals is shown in summer and for urban region. The diurnal variability validation shows that AHI AOD catch the diurnal AOD variations well, especially for summer. Large differences between AHI AOD and MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) aerosol products are shown, especially for northwest China. The analysis indicates that the uncertainties of AHI aerosol retrievals are induced by large errors of aerosol models and surface reflectance estimation in the algorithm.

Preliminary Investigation of a New AHI Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) Retrieval Algorithm and Evaluation with Multiple Source AOD Measurements in China

The Himawari-8 geostationary weather satellite, which is an Earth observing satellite launched in October 2014, has been applied in climate, environment, and air quality studies. Using hourly observation data from the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) on board Himawari-8, a new dark target algorithm was proposed to retrieve the aerosol optical depth (AOD) at 1 km and 5 km resolutions over mainland China. Because of the short satellite operation time and lack of AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) sites across China, we cannot derive robust and representative surface reflectance relationships for the visible to near-infrared channels by atmospheric correction. Therefore, we inherited the empirical reflectance relationship from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and we used the AHI and MODIS spectral response functions to make the relationship more suitable for AHI. Ultimately, our AOD products can better reflect the regional characteristics with the AHI sensor. Seasonal averages showed that our product is more similar to MODIS Collection 6 (C6) Dark Target (DT) AOD than the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) AHI AOD, but the difference is largest in winter. In addition, we evaluated several satellite retrieval products (our AHI AOD, JAXA AHI AOD, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) VIIRS AOD, MODIS DT AOD, and MODIS DB AOD) against AERONET AOD from July 2016 to June 2017. The results showed that our AHI measurements demonstrate good agreement with, but exhibit a little overestimation, as compared to ground-based AERONET measurements with a correlation coefficient of 0.83 and an root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 0.112. The hourly validation also showed stable statistical results. A time series comparison with ground-based observations from two AERONET sites (Beijing-CAMS and XiangHe) showed that our AHI AOD products have trends as those in MODIS DB AOD, but that the bias in Beijing-CAMS is positive and higher than that in XiangHe. This error and the slight overestimation may be caused by the single continental aerosol model assumption and not considering the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI).