Comparison of INSAT-3D AOD over Indian region with satellite- and ground-based measurements: a data assimilation perspective

Abstract

This paper aims at comparing the INSAT-3D AOD with other space based observations over the continental regions. INSAT-3D launched in 2013 is an advanced geostationary weather satellite of India at 82° East longitude provides Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) observations at 650 nm over both land and ocean. The level-3 daily AOD measurements from MODIS (both Aqua and Terra) and MISR are used for comparison with that from INSAT-3D. This work is applied during premonsoon season of 2015. Overall statistical scores and systematic errors are compared to characterize various error sources. Our study indicates that significant differences exist between different aerosol observations which may be partly due to retrieval algorithm, sensor configurations and temporal sampling. Comparison of INSAT observed AOD shows less bias towards MISR and MODIS-Terra observed AOD than with MODIS-Aqua. The INSAT observations over oceanic region have better correlation, minimum bias and rmse than land region. Overall, the mean bias of the dataset is ±0.05, with a root mean square error of 0.22, but these errors are also found highly dependent on geographical region. Additionally, we compared INSAT 660 nm AOD with two AERONET ground stations. The comparison of INSAT with different observations shows that the retrieved AOD is closer to the ground-based data than the MISR and MODIS AOD.