Assessment of AOD variability over Saudi Arabia using MODIS Deep Blue products

- The significance of aerosol in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is addressed.
- MODIS (Terra and Aqua), AERONET and ground based sand event data is used.
- MODIS DB product is used to prepare annual aerosol maps and monthly AOD variability.
- A comparison is made between Terra and Aqua AOD product over bright surface.
- MODIS DB AOD product is validated using AERONET data at Solar Village and KAUST.

The aim of this study is to investigate the variability of aerosol over The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. For this analysis, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Deep Blue (DB) Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) product from Terra and Aqua satellites for the years 2000-2013 is used. The product is validated using AERONET data from ground stations, which are situated at Solar Village Riyadh and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) Jeddah. The results show that both Terra and Aqua satellites exhibit a tendency to show the spatial variation of AOD with Aqua being better than Terra to represent the ground based AOD measurements over the study region. The results also show that the eastern, central, and southern regions of the country have a high concentration of AOD during the study period. The validation results show the highest correlation coefficient between Aqua and KAUST data with a value of 0.79, whilst the Aqua and Solar Village based AOD indicates the lowest Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Mean Absolute Error (MAE) values which are, 0.17 and 0.12 respectively. Furthermore, the Relative Mean Bias (RMB) based analysis show that the DB algorithm overestimates the AOD when using Terra and Solar Village data, while it underestimates the AOD when using Aqua with Solar Village and KAUST data. The RMB value for Aqua and Solar Village data indicates that the DB algorithm is close to normal in the study region.

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