Global Aerosol Optical Thickness Map from ADEOS-II Satellite

Global maps of aerosol optical thickness at 0.5 microns derived from the GLI sensor on Japan's ADEOS-II satellite. The product provides representative values projected onto a map with a spatial resolution of 1/4 degree and a statistical period of 16 days. It was produced by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) with the last update recorded in October 2003.

Use Cases

• Analyze spatial patterns of aerosol optical thickness at 0.5 microns to study atmospheric pollution transport.
• Validate and calibrate atmospheric dispersion models using the 1/4-degree resolution global map data.
• Correlate 16-day aggregated aerosol data with other environmental variables like wind velocity or water vapor for climate studies.
• Use the visible (678nm) and near-IR (865nm) channel-derived thickness for research on aerosol-cloud interactions.

Strengths

• Global spatial coverage for a complete planetary view.
• Data derived from a dedicated multi-channel optical sensor (GLI) with a 1600 km swath.
• Product is at version 2, indicating a level of refinement.

Limitations

• Data is temporally stale, with the last update in 2003.
• Specific row/record counts and total file size are unknown.
• The 16-day temporal aggregation may obscure short-term aerosol events.

Provenance

Source

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

Collection Method

Remote sensing data from the GLI sensor onboard the ADEOS-II satellite, processed to Level 3 binned and mapped products.

Time Range

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Freshness

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Geography

Global.