Ozone monitoring instrument aerosol products: Algorithm modeling and validation with ground based measurements over Europe

Airborne sun photometer measurements are used to evaluate retrievals of extinction Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD). These data are extracted from spatially coincident and temporally near coincident measurements by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) aboard the Aura satellite during 2005. OMI measured Top Of Atmosphere (TOA) reflectances are routinely inverted to yield aerosol products such as AOD using two different retrieval techniques: a near-Ultraviolet (UV) and a multi-wavelength technique. In this work, we study the application of the two AOD modeling techniques retrieved by OMI comparing to AOD captured at several locations containing sites of the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET). The comparison result shows that, just over Europe, OMI aerosol optical depths are better retrieved in the multi-wavelength retrieval than in the near UV. Correlations have been improved by applying a simple criterion to avoid scenes probably contaminated by thin clouds, and surface scattering.