Comparison of ozone monitoring instrument UV aerosol products with Aqua/Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer and Multiangle Imaging Spectroradiometer observations in 2006

[1] An assessment of the consistency of the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) aerosol products with the results from other satellite aerosol sensors is performed in this paper. The OMI aerosol products include the UltraViolet Aerosol Index (UVAI), Aerosol Absorption Optical Depth (AAOD), and Aerosol Extinction Optical Depth (AOD). The OMI AOD is compared with that from Aqua/Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Terra/Multiangle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR). OMI-retrieved AOD values are generally biased high with respect to MODIS measurements, likely as a result of a calibration offset. Subpixel cloud contamination is the second most important source of error. Other sources of error may contribute to the noise in the retrieval but not necessarily to the systematic bias. In spite of the bias, OMI retrievals show a high degree of correlation with MODIS observations. The analyses of daily cloud-free collocated AOD data between OMI and MODIS show about 0.15 root mean square error on average relative to the linear fit. OMI also shows a reasonable agreement with MODIS and MISR observations in seasonal annual cycles of aerosols over most of the major emission sources of carbonaceous aerosols from biomass burning and mineral dust from deserts. The AAOD is less sensitive to cloud contamination than the AOD. In addition, the information content in the UVAI is well expressed as AAOD with higher correlation than AOD. However, subpixel cloud contamination of OMI footprint (13 x 24 km(2) at nadir) is unavoidable, and retrieved AOD values tend to be overestimated with varying degrees of sensitivity as a function of viewing geometry and aerosol types selected.