Airborne sunphotometer measurements acquired by the NASA Ames Airborne Tracking Sunphotometer (AATS-14) aboard the NASA P-3 research aircraft are used to evaluate dark-target over-land retrievals of extinction aerosol optical depth (AOD) from spatially and temporally near-coincident measurements by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) during the summer 2008 Arctic Research ...

This paper evaluates the sensitivity of the aerosol optical depth (AOD) measurements derived from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) at wavelengths of 0.47, 0.55, and 0.66 mm from both the Terra and Aqua satellites for the estimation of ground-level concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in southern Ontario, Canada. The correlation between MODIS AOD and ground-...

[1] We use an ensemble of satellite (MODIS), aircraft, and ground‐based aerosol observations during the ICARTT field campaign over eastern North America in summer 2004 to (1) examine the consistency between different aerosol measurements, (2) evaluate a new retrieval of aerosol optical depths (AODs) and inferred surface aerosol concentrations (PM2.5) from the MODIS satellite instrument, and (3)...

This study evaluates the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) snow cover product over the territory of Austria. The aims are (a) to analyse the spatial and temporal variability of the MODIS snow product classes, (b) to examine the accuracy of the MODIS snow product against in situ snow depth data, and (c) to identify the main factors that may influence the MODIS classification ...

Satellite-based remote sensing of active fires is the only practical way to consistently and continuously monitor diurnal fluctuations in biomass burning from regional, to continental, to global scales. Failure to understand, quantify, and communicate the performance of an active fire detection algorithm, however, can lead to improper interpretations of the spatiotemporal distribution of biomas...

The availability of water surface inundation with high spatial resolution is of fundamental importance in several applications such as hydrology, meteorology and ecology. Medium spatial resolution sensors, like MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), exhibit a significant potential to study inundation dynamics over large areas because of their high temporal resolution. However, t...

Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) images were compared to Terra-MODIS imagery for detecting forest changes in northern Maine’s industrial forest. Advantages of MODIS imagery compared to medium spatial resolution imagery, like Landsat TM or ETM+, are its temporal frequency, its low data volume to cover large forest regions and, the data are free to download over the Internet. The obje...

[1] Cloud microphysical observations collected in situ during the VAMOS Ocean-Cloud-Atmosphere-Land Study Regional Experiment within the Chile-Peru stratocumulus cloud deck during October–November 2008 were used to assess MODIS Level 2 cloud property retrievals. The in situ aircraft-derived cloud property values were constructed from the drop size distributions measured by the Cloud Droplet Pro...

Using streamflow and Snowpack Telemetry (SNOTEL) measurements as constraints, the evaluation of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) daily and 8-day snow-cover products is carried out using the Upper Rio Grande River Basin as a test site. A time series of the snow areal extent (SAE) of the Upper Rio Grande Basin is retrieved from the MODIS tile h09v05 covering the time peri...

An understanding of the surface albedo of high latitudes is crucial for climate change studies. MODIS albedo retrievals flagged as high quality compare well with in situ Greenland Climate Network (GC-Net) measurements but cover too small an area to fully characterize Greenland's albedo in non-summer months. In contrast, poor quality MODIS retrievals provide adequate spatio-temporal coverage, bu...