Aerosol model evaluation using two geostationary satellites over East Asia in May 2016

• Goto, Daisuke

  National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES)

• Kikuchi, Maki

  Earth Observation Research Center (EORC), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)

• Suzuki, Kentaroh

  Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, University of Tokyo

• Hayasaki, Masamitsu

  Japan Automobile Research Institute

• Yoshida, Mayumi

  Earth Observation Research Center (EORC), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)

• Nagao, Takashi M.

  Earth Observation Research Center (EORC), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)

• Choi, Myungje

  Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Yonsei University

• Kim, Jhoon

  Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Yonsei University

• Sugimoto, Nobuo

  National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES)

• Shimizu, Atsushi

  National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES)

• Oikawa, Eiji

  Research Institute for Applied Mechanics, Kyushu University

• Nakajima, Teruyuki

  Earth Observation Research Center (EORC), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)

Abstract

This study newly applies measurements from two geostationary satellites, the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) onboard the geostationary satellite Himawari-8 and the Geostationary Ocean Color imager (GOCI) onboard the geostationary satellite COMS, to evaluate a unique regional aerosol-transport model coupled to a non-hydrostatic icosahedral atmospheric model (NICAM) at a high resolution without any nesting technique and boundary conditions of the aerosols. Taking advantage of the unique capability of these geostationary satellites to measure aerosols with unprecedentedly high temporal resolution, we focus on a target area (115°E-155°E, 20°N-50°N) in East Asia in May 2016, which featured the periodic transport of industrial aerosols and a very heavy aerosol plume from Siberian wildfires. The aerosol optical thickness (AOT) fields are compared among the AHI, GOCI, MODIS, AERONET and NICAM data. The results show that both AHI- and GOCI-retrieved AOTs were generally comparable to the AERONET-retrieved ones, with high correlation coefficients of approximately 0.7 in May 2016. They also show that NICAM successfully captured the detailed horizontal distribution of AOT transported from Siberia to Japan on the most polluted day (18 May 2016). The monthly statistical metrics, including correlation between the model and either AHI or GOCI, are estimated to be>0.4 in 42–49% of the target area. With the aid of sensitivity model experiments with and without Siberian wildfires, it was found that a long-range transport of aerosols from Siberian wildfires (from as far as 3000 km) to Japan influenced the monthly mean aerosol levels, accounting for 7–35% of the AOT, 26–49% of the surface PM2.5 concentrations, and 25–66% of the aerosol extinction above 3 km in height over Japan. Therefore, the air pollutants from Siberian wildfire cannot be ignored for the spring over Japan.

Journal

• Atmospheric Research

  Atmospheric Research 217 93-113, 2019-03-01

  Elsevier

Keywords

• Aerosols
• Geostationary satellite
• Siberian wildfire
• Model evaluation

Details

• CRID: 1050017057727947136
• NII Article ID: 120006648333
• NII Book ID: AA10676566
• ISSN: 01698095
• HANDLE: 2324/2320111
• Text Lang: en
• Article Type: journal article
• Data Source:
  • IRDB
  • CiNii Articles