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A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292). This special issue belongs to the section "Atmospheric Remote Sensing".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2019) | Viewed by 14943

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Prof. Dr. Maria João Costa

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Institute of Earth Sciences (ICT), Institute of Research and Advanced Training, University of Évora, 7000-671 Évora, Portugal
Interests: aerosol and cloud physics; solar radiation; atmospheric radiative transfer; atmospheric remote sensing
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Satellite missions for meteorological and earth-atmosphere observation purposes have steadily increased in the last six decades. More recently, sensor technological advances reflect in the development and improvement of the ability to describe the atmosphere from satellite remote sensing. Satellite-derived global atmosphere products span a vast set of atmospheric properties, obtained from numerous different sensors at a variety of spatial and temporal scales. These products represent major sources of continuous data at the global scale, allowing for monitoring the atmospheric environment and greatly contributing to a better understanding of atmospheric processes and of the climate system and its changes. The consistency of atmospheric products retrieved from satellite data is thus crucial and must be assessed in order to provide users with information on product accuracy, precision and stability. The validation/evaluation of satellite-derived global atmosphere products are challenging tasks that require the use of independent reference data. Useful datasets to quantify uncertainties and address validation include, but are not limited to, ground-based measurements and reference satellite products for satellite inter-comparison. This Special Issue invites contributions dealing with the validation/evaluation of radiometric and geophysical global atmospheric satellite retrievals.

Prof. Maria João Costa
Guest Editor

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Keywords

Satellite Remote Sensing
Global Atmospheric Products
Validation
Evaluation
Uncertainty

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 7958 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Evaluation of GPM IMERG V05B and TRMM 3B42V7 Precipitation Products over High Mountainous Tributaries in Lhasa with Dense Rain Gauges

by Shuhong Wang, Jintao Liu, Jiarong Wang, Xiao Qiao and Jie Zhang

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(18), 2080; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11182080 - 05 Sep 2019

Cited by 43 | Viewed by 3246

Abstract

In most Asian high mountain areas, ground-based observations of precipitation are sparse. It is urgent to assess and apply satellite precipitation products (SPPs). In recent years, relatively dense rain gauges have been established in five tributaries in Lhasa. Therefore, based on high-density rain gauges, two SPPs (GPM IMERG V05B, TRMM 3B42V7) were evaluated at the grid, region, and time scales with different statistical indices in the five tributaries. Besides, the dependence of SPPs performances on the precipitation intensities, elevation, and slope was investigated. The results indicate that: (1) both 3B42V7 and IMERG showed similarly low correlation with rain gauges at daily scale and high correlation at monthly scale, but 3B42V7 tended to suffer from systematic overestimation of monthly precipitation; (2) IMERG product outperformed 3B42V7 except for obvious overestimation of trace precipitation (0.1~1 mm day⁻¹) and underestimation of torrential precipitation (>50 mm day⁻¹); (3) the precipitation over the five tributaries showed significant spatial variability with difference of characteristic values (e.g., average daily precipitation) more than 20% in some IMERG grids and most 3B42V7 grids; (4) elevation had an obvious effect on the accuracy of 3B42V7 and IMERG, and the accuracy of the two SPPs decreased significantly with the increase of elevation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Satellite Derived Global Atmosphere Product Validation/Evaluation)

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19 pages, 1104 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Validation of Fengyun4A Temperature and Humidity Profile Products by Radiosonde Observations

by Min He, Donghai Wang, Weiyu Ding, Yijing Wan, Yonghang Chen and Yu Zhang

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(17), 2039; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11172039 - 29 Aug 2019

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2931

Abstract

Fengyun4A is the first geostationary satellite with payload of the infrared hyperspectral sounder. The geostationary platform-based instrument can provide observational 3-dimensional fields of temperature and humidity with high scanning frequencies and spatial resolutions. The IR instrument-observed temperature (T) and relative humidity (RH) profiles are closely related to the cloud states. Radiosonde observations are used to validate the Fengyun4A T and RH profiles under different cloud-type sky conditions. The cloud-type information comes from the Himawari-8 satellite which has substantial observing overlap with Fengyun4A over Asia. Taking the radiosonde observation as the reference, Fengyun4A T profile has uncertainty of 2.1 K under clear sky, and 3.7 K under cloudy sky. When cloudy sky is divided into cloud-type skies, the categories have disparities in temperature biases, varying from positive to negative. It is found that most of cloud-type categories have uncertainties of 2.5–3.0 K. The RH profiles have an uncertainty of 18% under clear sky and 21% under cloudy sky in absolute value. On average, the RH biases show neural but positively biased at the dry side and negatively biased at the wet side in the scatter plot. The International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) cloud type can help to extend the quality flag of the Fengyun4A temperature profile. The impacts from cloud types on IR sounding profiles should be considered in product development or applications. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Satellite Derived Global Atmosphere Product Validation/Evaluation)

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15 pages, 1537 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Validation of ESA Sentinel-2 L2A Aerosol Optical Thickness and Columnar Water Vapour during 2017–2018

by María Ángeles Obregón, Gonçalo Rodrigues, Maria Joao Costa, Miguel Potes and Ana Maria Silva

Remote Sens. 2019, 11(14), 1649; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11141649 - 11 Jul 2019

Cited by 22 | Viewed by 3918

Abstract

This study presents a validation of aerosol optical thickness (AOT) and integrated water vapour (IWV) products provided by the European Space Agency (ESA) from multi-spectral imager (MSI) measurements on board the Sentinel-2 satellite (ESA-L2A). For that purpose, data from 94 Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) stations over Europe and adjacent regions, covering a wide geographical region with a variety of climate and environmental conditions and during the period between March 2017 and December 2018 have been used. The comparison between ESA-L2A and AERONET shows a better agreement for IWV than the AOT, with normalized root mean square errors (NRMSE) of 5.33% and 9.04%, respectively. This conclusion is also reflected in the values of R², which are 0.99 and 0.65 for IWV and AOT, respectively. The study period was divided into two sub-periods, before and after 15 January 2018, when the Sentinel-2A spectral response functions of bands 1 and 2 (centered at 443 and 492 nm) were updated by ESA, in order to investigate if the lack of agreement in the AOT values was connected to the use of incorrect spectral response functions. The comparison of ESA-L2A AOT with AERONET measurements showed a better agreement for the second sub-period, with root mean square error (RMSE) values of 0.08 in comparison with 0.14 in the first sub-period. This same conclusion was attained considering mean bias error (MBE) values that decreased from 0.09 to 0.01. The ESA-L2A AOT values estimated with the new spectral response functions were closer to the correspondent reference AERONET values than the ones obtained using the previous spectral response functions. IWV was not affected by this change since the retrieval algorithm does not use bands 1 and 2 of Sentinel-2. Additionally, an analysis of potential uncertainty sources to several factors affecting the AOT comparison is presented and recommendations regarding the use of ESA-L2A AOT dataset are given. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Satellite Derived Global Atmosphere Product Validation/Evaluation)

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18 pages, 6794 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Validation and Comparison of MODIS C6.1 and C6 Aerosol Products over Beijing, China

by Xinpeng Tian, Qiang Liu, Xiuhong Li and Jing Wei

Remote Sens. 2018, 10(12), 2021; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10122021 - 12 Dec 2018

Cited by 41 | Viewed by 4365

Abstract

The operational Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Aerosol Products (APs) have provided long-term and wide-spatial-coverage aerosol optical properties across the globe, such as aerosol optical depth (AOD). However, the performance of the latest Collection 6.1 (C6.1) of MODIS APs is still unclear over urban areas that feature complex surface characteristics and aerosol models. The aim of this study was to validate and compare the performance of the MODIS C6.1 and C6 APs (MxD04, x = O for Terra, x = Y for Aqua) over Beijing, China. The results of the Dark Target (DT) and Deep Blue (DB) algorithms were validated against Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) ground-based observations at local sites. The retrieval uncertainties and accuracies were evaluated using the expected error (EE: ±0.05 + 15%) and the root-mean-square error (RMSE). It was found that the MODIS C6.1 DT products performed better than the C6 DT products, with a greater percentage (by about 13%–14%) of the retrievals falling within the EE. However, the DT retrievals collected from two collections were significantly overestimated in the Beijing region, with more than 64% and 48% of the samples falling above the EE for the Terra and Aqua satellites, respectively. The MODIS C6.1 DB products performed similarly to the C6 DB products, with 70%–73% of the retrievals matching within the EE and estimation uncertainties. Moreover, the DB algorithm performed much better than DT algorithm over urban areas, especially in winter where abundant missing pixels were found in DT products. To investigate the effects of factors on AOD retrievals, the variability in the assumed surface reflectance and the main optical properties applied in DT and DB algorithms are also analyzed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Satellite Derived Global Atmosphere Product Validation/Evaluation)

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