Spatial distribution analysis of the OMI aerosol layer height: a pixel-by-pixel comparison to CALIOP observations

Abstract

Abstract. A global picture of atmospheric aerosol vertical distribution with a high temporal resolution is of key importance not only for climate, cloud formation and air quality research studies, but also for correcting aerosol radiation effect in absorbing trace gas retrievals from passive satellite sensors. Aerosol layer height (ALH) was retrieved from the OMI 477 nm O 2 −O 2 band and its spatial pattern evaluated over selected cloud-free scenes. Such retrievals benefit from a synergy with MODIS data to provide complementary information on aerosols and cloudy pixels. We used a neural network approach previously trained for climate studies as well as for future aerosol correction in air quality trace gas retrievals.