Effect of MODIS Terra radiometric calibration improvements on Collection 6 Deep Blue aerosol products: validation and Terra/Aqua consistency

The Deep Blue (DB) algorithm's primary data product is midvisible aerosol optical depth (AOD). DB applied to Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) measurements provides a data record since early 2000 for MODIS Terra and mid-2002 for MODIS Aqua. In the previous data version (Collection 5, C5), DB production from Terra was halted in 2007 due to sensor degradation; the new Collection 6 (C6) has both improved science algorithms and sensor radiometric calibration. This includes additional calibration corrections developed by the Ocean Biology Processing Group to address MODIS Terra's gain, polarization sensitivity, and detector response versus scan angle, meaning DB can now be applied to the whole Terra record. Through validation with Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) data, it is shown that the C6 DB Terra AOD quality is stable throughout the mission to date. Compared to the C5 calibration, in recent years the RMS error compared to AERONET is smaller by similar to 0.04 over bright (e.g., desert) and similar to 0.01-0.02 over darker (e.g., vegetated) land surfaces, and the fraction of points in agreement with AERONET within expected retrieval uncertainty higher by similar to 10% and similar to 5%, respectively. Comparisons to the Aqua C6 time series reveal a high level of correspondence between the two MODIS DB data records, with a small positive (Terra-Aqua) average AOD offset < 0.01. The analysis demonstrates both the efficacy of the new radiometric calibration efforts and that the C6 MODIS Terra DB AOD data remain stable (to better than 0.01 AOD) throughout the mission to date, suitable for quantitative scientific analyses.