Comparison of aerosol products retrieved from AERONET and MODIS over an urban area in Hanoi city, Vietnam

Understanding the dynamics of aerosols and associated influence on regional and global climatic conditions requires the knowledge of spatial and temporal distributions of aerosols on regional and global scales. In this study, the satellite-based MODIS AODs retrievals level 2 products from Terra (MOD04-10 km) and Aqua (MYD04-10km) satellites are inter-compared with the ground-based AERONET AODs (level 2) over Nghia Do station located in an urban area of Hanoi city, Vietnam for the period of 2010-2016. The Terra AODs showed good-match with the ground-based AODs measurements (slope = 0.830, intercept = 0.099, RMSE = 0.260, R2 = 0.673, and RMB = 0.970). However, the Aqua AODs expressed systematically the underestimation of AERONET AODs (slope = 0.556, intercept = 0.184, RMSE = 0.390, R2 = 0.408, and RMB = 0.810). All MODIS AODs indicates the moderate correlation with AERONET AODs (slope = 0.683, intercept = 0.147, RMSE = 0.330, R2 = 0.520, and RMB = 0.890). Although MODIS AODs follow well the monthly variations of AERONET AODs, the relatively high discrepancy between MODIS and AERONET AODs can be observed during the winter months. Keywords: aerosol products; MODIS AODs; AERONET AODs; inter-comparison.