Abstract. Satellite-based aerosol retrievals provide global spatially distributed estimates of atmospheric aerosol parameters that are commonly needed in applications such as estimation of atmospherically corrected satellite data products, climate modelling and air quality monitoring. However, a common feature of the conventional satellite aerosol retrievals is that they have reasonably low spatial resolution and poor accuracy caused by uncertainty in auxiliary model parameters, such as fixed aerosol model parameters, and the approximate forward radiative transfer models utilized to keep the computational complexity feasible. As a result, the improvement and reprocessing of the operational satellite data retrieval algorithms would become a tedious and computationally excessive problem. To overcome these problems, we have developed a machine-learning-based post-process correction approach to correct the existing operational satellite aerosol data products. Our approach combines the existing satellite retrieval data and a post-processing step where a machine learning algorithm is utilized to predict the approximation error in the conventional retrieval. With approximation error, we refer to the discrepancy between the true aerosol parameters and the ones retrieved using the satellite data. Our hypothesis is that the prediction of the approximation error with a finite training dataset is a less complex and easier task than the direct, fully learned machine-learning-based prediction in which the aerosol parameters are directly predicted given the satellite observations and measurement geometry. Our approach does not require reprocessing of the satellite retrieval products; it requires only a computationally fast machine-learning-based post-processing step of the existing retrieval product. Our approach is based on neural networks trained based on collocated satellite data and accurate ground-based Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) aerosol data. Based on our post-processing approach, we propose a post-process-corrected high-resolution Sentinel-3 Synergy aerosol product, which gives a spectral estimate of the aerosol optical depth at five different wavelengths with a high spatial resolution equivalent to the native resolution of the Sentinel-3 Level-1 data (300 m at nadir). With aerosol data from Sentinel-3A and 3B satellites, we demonstrate that our approach produces high-resolution aerosol data with clearly better accuracy than the operational Sentinel-3 Level-2 Synergy aerosol product, and it also results in slightly better accuracy than the conventional fully learned machine learning approach. We also demonstrate better generalization capabilities of the post-process correction approach over the fully learned approach.

Abstract. Satellite-based aerosol retrievals provide global spatially distributed estimates of atmospheric aerosol parameters that are commonly needed in applications such as estimation of atmospherically corrected satellite data products, climate modeling and air quality monitoring. However, a common feature of the conventional satellite aerosol retrievals is that they have reasonably low spatial resolution and poor accuracy caused by uncertainty in auxiliary model parameters, such as fixed aerosol model parameters, and the approximate forward radiative transfer models utilized to keep the computational complexity feasible. As a result, the improvement and re-processing of the operational satellite data retrieval algorithms would become a tedious and computationally excessive problem. To overcome these problems, we have developed a machine learning-based post-process correction approach to correct the existing operational satellite aerosol data products. Our approach combines the existing satellite retrieval data and a post-processing step where a machine learning algorithm is utilized to predict the approximation error in the conventional retrieval. With approximation error we refer to the discrepancy between the true aerosol parameters and the ones retrieved using the satellite data. Our hypothesis is that the prediction of the approximation error with a finite training data set is a less complex and easier task than the direct fully learned machine learning based prediction in which the aerosol parameters are directly predicted given the satellite observations and measurement geometry. With our approach, there is no need to re-run the existing retrieval algorithms and only a computationally feasible post-processing step is needed. Our approach is based on neural networks trained based on collocated satellite data and accurate ground based AERONET aerosol data. Based on our post-processing approach, we propose a post-process corrected high resolution Sentinel-3 Synergy aerosol product, which gives a spectral estimate of the aerosol optical depth at five different wavelengths with a high spatial resolution equivalent to the native resolution of the Sentinel-3 level-1 data (300 meters at nadir). With aerosol data from Sentinel-3A and 3B satellites, we demonstrate that our approach produces high-resolution aerosol data with better accuracy than the operational Sentinel-3 level-2 Synergy aerosol product or a conventional fully learned machine learning approach.

Poor air quality poses a great threat to human health. Accurate high-resolution satellite remote sensing of atmospheric aerosols would highly benefit satellite-based air quality estimates. We have developed and validated a post-process correction and downscaling approach for satellite remote sensing of aerosols. We use NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aerosol optical depth (AOD) over Washington D.C. -Baltimore area during the Distributed Regional Aerosol Gridded Observation Networks (DRAGON) campaign in 2011 to evaluate our approach. We derive and evaluate the AOD fields with high 250 meter resolution. The results show that the post-process correction approach is suitable for deriving downscaled, high-resolution AOD estimates and significantly improves the accuracy of the AOD retrievals.

Poor air quality poses a great threat to human health. Accurate high‐resolution satellite remote sensing of atmospheric aerosols would highly benefit satellite‐based air quality estimates. We have developed and validated a post‐process correction and downscaling approach for satellite remote sensing of aerosols. We use NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aerosol optical depth (AOD) over the Washington D.C.—Baltimore area during the Distributed Regional Aerosol Gridded Observation Networks campaign in 2011 to evaluate our approach. We derive and evaluate the AOD fields at high 250 m resolution. The results show that the post‐process correction approach is suitable for deriving downscaled, high‐resolution AOD estimates and significantly improves the accuracy of the AOD retrievals.