Intercomparison TOMS and GOES aerosol product

Aerosol is a key component in climate change studies. However, there are still large uncertainties remaining in aerosol radiative impact studies. Recently, the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) has been used to detect UV absorbing aerosols which shows the large spatial extent of aerosols governed by tropospheric circulation. Aerosol Index has been applied to characterize aerosol properties. In this study, high temporal and spatial resolution GOES-8 data is used to derive aerosol optical thickness(AOT) and has further been applied to intercompare with TOMS AI product over cloud free and cloudy situations. Over cloud free regions, TOMS AI and GOES retrieved AOT share a high degree of correlation. Over cloudy regions, however, there is a large discrepancy between GOES derived cloud fraction and TOMS assumed cloud fraction that can further lead to uncertainties in TOMS AI and Ozone retrievals. These uncertainties are quantified and corrections are proposed that can improve TOMS aerosol and ozone retrievals.