Publications

Thorsen, TJ; Ryan, RA; Vaughan, MA (2025). Validation of Aerosol Optical Depth Retrieved From CALIPSO Lidar Ocean Surface Backscatter. JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-ATMOSPHERES, 130(7), e2024JD042416.

Abstract
Aerosol optical depth (AOD) from the new Ocean Derived Column Optical Depth (ODCOD) data product derived from the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) onboard the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) spacecraft is validated using the ground-based Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET). Relative to AERONET, ODCOD is shown to provide an unbiased AOD and a root mean squared error (RMSE) of 60%. This is in contrast to the performance of the standard CALIPSO AOD retrievals (which first detect/identify aerosol layers, retrieve their extinction profile, and then integrate to obtain AOD) that show a larger RMSE (93%) and a significant negative bias (-20%). ODCOD is also shown to provide a higher-fidelity uncertainty estimate than the standard retrievals with the estimated uncertainties providing a good prediction of the true errors as diagnosed with AERONET. A perturbation analysis is performed to assess ODCOD as a retrieval constraint to improve the profiling capability of CALIOP. This analysis indicates that ODCOD has the potential to improve up to 40% of CALIOP retrievals globally.

DOI:
10.1029/2024JD042416

ISSN:
2169-8996