Three-dimensional reconstruction of aerosols based on spectral radiance matching

—This paper evaluates a three-dimensional scene construction algorithm that assigns CALIPSO-observed profiles to receiving pixels in MODIS imagery through spectral radiance matching (SRM), so that a limited number of vertically resolved aerosol observations can be expanded into a regionally continuous three-dimensional aerosol structure. The SRM algorithm was tested using moderate resolution imaging spectro-radiometer (MODIS) and cloud-aerosol lidar and infrared pathfinder satellite observation (CALIPSO) data for the period of April 10–25, 2015. First, the spectral radiance channel and the surface reflectance channel were selected for combination tests to select the best channel combination 01-04-07-26 for the application of SRM algorithm in the field of aerosol three-dimensional reconstruction. The average aerosol matching rate for this channel combination can reach 90.57%, 81.64%, 78.6%, 74.12%, and 65.96% at extended distances of 5, 20, 30, 50, and 100 km, respectively. In addition, the combination of the average correct match rate and the reconstructed aerosol structure revealed that the most suitable extension distance is up to 100 km. Then, for the reconstruction profile validation, lidar sites under four weather conditions (clean sky, aerosol loading, thin clouds, and thick clouds) were selected for validation. The comparison results reveal that the average relative errors are about 30%, 60%, 30%–60%, and 70% for these four conditions, respectively. Overall, the average relative error of the reconstructed profiles within 100 km of the orbital track of CALIPSO (except under thick cloud conditions) is less than 60%, which is within a reasonable error envelop. There are also some limitations that can be improved later by adding more constraints: 1) it is difficult to reconstruct some short-time, small-scale aerosol or cloud features; 2) it is difficult to reconstruct some hierarchical structures under thick clouds due to signal attenuation caused by thick clouds; 3) there is an underestimation of the attenuated backscatter coefficient under clouds. Finally, for aerosol optical depth (AOD), the SRM algorithm largely underestimates AOD. The reconstructed AOD is in good agreement with aerosol robotic network (AERONET), with R2=0.8231 after removal of outliers.