Evaluation of the Multi-Angle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC) Aerosol Algorithm for Himawari-8 Data

Himawari-8, operated by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), is a new generation geostationary satellite that provides remote sensing data to retrieve atmospheric aerosol optical depth (AOD) at high spatial (1 km) and high temporal (10 min) resolutions. The Geostationary-National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Earth exchange (GeoNEX) project recently adapted the multiangle implementation of atmospheric correction (MAIAC) algorithm, originally developed for joint retrieval of AOD and surface anisotropic reflectance with the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) data, to generate Earth monitoring products from the latest geostationary satellites including Himawari-8. This study evaluated the GeoNEX Himawari-8 similar to 1 km MAIAC AOD retrieved over all the aerosol robotic network (AERONET) sites between 6 degrees N-30 degrees N and 91 degrees E-127 degrees E. The corresponding JMA Himawari-8 AOD products were also evaluated for comparison. We only used cloud-free and the best quality satellite AOD retrievals and compiled a total of 16,532 MAIAC-AERONET and 21,737 JMA-AERONET contemporaneous pairs of AOD values for 2017. Statistical analyses showed that both MAIAC and JMA data are highly correlated with AERONET AOD, with the correlation coefficient (R) of similar to 0.77, and the root mean squared error (RMSE) of similar to 0.16. The absolute bias of MAIAC AOD (0.02 overestimation) appears smaller than that of the JMA AOD (0.05 underestimation). In comparison with the JMA data, the time series of MAIAC AOD were more consistent with AERONET AOD values and better capture the diurnal variations of the latter. The dependence of MAIAC AOD bias on scattering angles is also discussed.