COMPARISON OF THREE METHODS FOR THE REMOTE

SENSING OF AEROSOL OPTICAL DEPTH USING MODIS IN

WESTERN AND CENTRAL AUSTRALIA

Mark Broomhall1, Brendon McAtee2, Stefan Maier3

1
Curtin University of Technology
Kent st, Bentley, W.A., 6102
03 9669 4396
m.broomhall@bom.gov.au
2
Landgate, Government of Western Australia
65 Brockway Rd, Floreat, W.A., 6104
08 9387 0356
Brendon.McAtee@landgate.wa.gov.au
3
Charles Darwin University
Ellengowan Drive, Casuarina, NT, 0810
08 8946 6901
Stefan.Maier@cdu.edu.au

Abstract
Landgate, Government of Western Australia, produces time-series bidirectional
reflectance data for the Australian continent derived from MODIS (Moderate
Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) sensors on the Aqua and Terra
satellites. This data is provided at 250 m resolution for each land pixel. This
data is derived using the Bidirectional Reflectance Function (BRF) developed
over time from sensor-derived surface reflectance observations for each pixel.
The BRF allows a predicted estimate of the surface reflectance of each pixel for
the next overpass if the solar position and MODIS sensor position are known.
The predicted surface reflectance allows a direct comparison with the observed
reflectance to produce a reflectance change (RC) product by subtracting the
predicted reflectance from the observed reflectance. The RC is used at
Landgate to produce cloud masks, fire hot spot and burnt area information. This
paper examines a new use of MODIS reflectance change data to retrieve
Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD).
The RC method uses a look-up table approach to compare known parameters
and estimated parameters with observed reflectance change data to retrieve an
unknown value of AOD.
The following paper will briefly discuss the retrieval method and show
comparisons with AERONET data and two other NASA retrieval methods. The
AERONET sites are located at; Birdsville (QLD), Jabiru (NT), Lake Argyle (WA)
and Tinga Tingana (SA). The primary test site is located at Merredin in the WA
wheatbelt.

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Introduction
Atmospheric correction is an essential part of producing accurate estimations of
surface reflectance from satellite imagery. Aerosol loading within the
atmosphere has the greatest affect on the determination of accurate surface
reflectance from satellite platforms and there are many issues with effective
measurement of aerosol. The radiative forcing of aerosols has become
increasingly important as researchers strive to investigate global warming. This
is done on a global basis and much of the focus or aerosol researchers is
targeted towards closing the radiative forcing loop.
In order to produce accurate surface reflectance products, these global
approaches where generic algorithms and course resolutions are the norm are
not particularly applicable.
The estimation of aerosol parameters from satellites over land is a classic ill-
posed problem. As it is not possible to solve the radiative transfer equation to
yield aerosol parameters due to a lack of information, some estimation of
parameters is required. Many techniques estimate the surface reflectance either
by clearest condition (Hsu et.al. 2004, Liang et.al. 2006) or reflectance ratios
(Remer et.al 2005) to solve for the aerosol parameters. Both of these
techniques have their problems.
The MODIS sensors on-board Terra and Aqua revisit the same geographic
location twice during the day and several times over the course of a week. This
revisit time coupled with a variety of observational geometries (this includes
satellite or view zenith angle to the target, solar zenith angle to the target, and
the relative azimuth between the sun and the satellite) allow a rigorous semi-
empirical BRF to be fitted for pixels on the surface. The remote sensing of these
pixels include information on the surface and the atmosphere as both signals
are included if atmospheric correction is not performed before determination of
the BRF. The BRF is essentially a time series of the surface reflectance, albeit
the satellite received signal is not uniform.
RC of MODIS bands that are not overly affected by changes in atmospheric
condition but are affected by surface phenomenon (such as bands 5 and 7)
have been used to both map burn scars caused by fire activity (Roy et.al. 2002)
and determine fire location and severity (Goessman et.al 2006.)
This BRF anomaly approach has being investigated for the first 8 bands of
MODIS to determine if it is possible to detect and therefore measure the aerosol
loading of the atmosphere, although no retrievals have been done for band 8 as
the prerequisite data was not available.

Method
The AOD retrieval method will sit within an operational MODIS processing
system which is designed to produce atmospherically and BRF corrected
surface reflectance data. This process uses the Simple Method for Atmospheric
Correction (SMAC) (Rahman et.al 1994) for atmospheric correction and a
method similar to MOD43 (Strahler et.al. 1999), developed in-house for BRF
retrieval.

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The SMAC process uses a list of coefficients produces by extensive radiative
transfer modelling that are unique for each MODIS band. The process requires
input data such as water vapour content, atmospheric pressure and AOD which
are input into simple calculations along with the pre-computed coefficients.
The atmospherically corrected surface reflectance data produced by the SMAC
process is then fed into the BRF algorithm. The BRF algorithm requires a
number of different views of the surface under various illumination conditions to
build up the intrinsic characteristics of each pixel on the surface. Once there are
enough views of the surface then it is possible to predict the surface reflectance
for other viewing geometries.
The ability to predict reflectance for other viewing geometries can be used to
produce a reflectance difference or reflectance change for each pixel. Landgate
produces a reflectance change product (RC) by subtracting a prediction of the
surface reflectance from 4 days previous (Rp) from the current day’s
observation (Ro).

RC = Ro − R p (1)

The RC is very useful as it can reveal where changes have occurred on the
surface. If for example a fire has burnt through a well vegetated area the
reflectance in some of the first 8 MODIS bands will drop. In this case the RC will
be negative.
This work has expanded this method to pickup changes in the atmosphere
rather than the surface.
As mentioned the SMAC process is used to perform atmospheric correction. It
requires input data for AOD at 550 nm. In the initial process the input value for
AOD at 550 nm is a constant of 0.05. This value is can be shown to be close to
an average value for AOD at 550 nm for a majority of western and central
Australia. This means that if the AOD for a particular day is higher than the
average value then this will be expressed within the reflectance change product.
MODIS has 7 surface reflectance bands ranging from 0.4 – 2.1 μm. Aerosol
effects shorter wavelengths preferentially to longer wavelengths. The
reflectance of the Earth’s surface is also lower at shorter wavelengths. This will
mean that the chances of detecting AOD change are far better with shorter
wavelengths.
The development of the method began by using the MODTRAN radiative
transfer program to produce band-averaged reflectance figures for the first 8
MODIS bands for a range of viewing and solar angles, surface reflectances and
AOD’s. These files or tables are used extensively in the retrieval process.
The retrieval process is done on a pixel by pixel basis and requires a number of
input values. For each pixel the view zenith, solar zenith and relative azimuth
are used to select a set of lookup files. The surface reflectance is estimated
from the BRF which gives the reflectance for the current viewing geometry. This
surface reflectance estimate further allows the selection of a set of equivalent

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reflectance figures from the lookup tables for 36 AOD values. These values
range from 0.05 to 0.75.
The equivalent reflectance value for the average AOD value of 0.05 is then
subtracted from the remaining equivalent reflectance value. This results in a set
of reflectance difference or change values for changes in AOD. These values
are then compared to the RC as determined by equation 1. The closest match
between the lookup table data and the RC determines the estimated change in
AOD. The AOD can then be determined by subtracting the average AOD from
the determined change. Examples of this data can be seen in figure 7.
Results
The following results compare the MOD04 and Deep Blue algorithms with the
reflectance change algorithm for 5 sites over western and central Australia.

Figure 1: Location of the 5 Australian test sites

The MOD04 algorithm was developed specifically for MODIS and has had 4
major updates known as collections. The data used in this comparison is
collection 5 data. Deep Blue data was at the time of the comparison only
available for MODIS-Aqua data. Deep Blue is designed to retrieve AOD over
bright reflective source regions such as deserts. MOD04 is designed to work
over dark reflective source regions. It is hoped that the RC algorithm will work
over all surface types.
The Merredin test site is located in a wheat growing region and will range from
green crops to largely bare earth over the year.
Birdsville and Tinga Tingana are located in desert regions with Tinga Tingana
being close to many salt lakes.

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Lake Argyle is located in a semi-arid tropical region which is also adjacent to the
Ord river irrigation scheme.
Jabiru is located in the Kakadu national park and is well, if not densely
vegetated all year round.
The satellite data is compared with in-situ sun photometer data. All of the sites
apart from Merredin had data collected with a Cimel sun photometer. Merredin
had data collected with a Multi-filter Rotating Shadowband Radiometer
(MFRSR). The Cimel data was retrieved from the AERONET website. Level 1.5
data was used in all cases. Level 1.5 data has been cloud screened but has not
been quality controlled.
The MFRSR data is processed using the General method which should reject
most cloud affected pixels but this has also not been quality controlled.
The following graphs show the results of the comparisons of the Satellite-
derived AOD from MODIS for the three methods mentioned and in-situ sun
photometer data. Included on the graphs is a line of perfect fit (either red or
black), the equation of the actual line of best fit, the RMS error and the
goodness of fit or R2 value.
The graphs in figures 2 – 6 above show a line of best fit and the ideal line. A line
of perfect fit would have an equation of y=x, an r2 value of 1 and an RMS error
of 0. All of the examples above are far from this ideal fit.

Figure 2: MOD04, Deep Blue and RC algorithm band 3 derived AOD comparisons with
sun photometer data for Merredin, September 2006. The red lines show the line of
perfect fit and the black line shows the actual fit.

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Figure 3: MOD04, Deep Blue and RC algorithm band 3 derived AOD comparisons with
sun photometer data for Lake Argyle, September 2006. The red lines show the line of
perfect fit and the black line shows the actual fit.

Figure 4: MOD04 and RC algorithm band 3 derived AOD comparisons with sun
photometer data for Jabiru, September 2006. The red lines show the line of perfect fit
and the black line shows the actual fit.

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 Figure 5: Deep Blue and RC algorithm band 3 and band 5 derived AOD comparisons
with sun photometer data for Tinga Tingana, summer 2006/2007. The red lines show
the line of perfect fit and the black line shows the actual fit. The bottom right pane
shows the line of perfect fit as a black line with 2 different types of fit shown by the pink
and blue lines.

Figure 6: Deep Blue and RC algorithm band 3 derived AOD comparisons with sun
photometer data for Birdsville, September 2006. The red lines show the line of perfect
fit and the black line shows the actual fit.
Discussion
The data comparisons above were for September 2006, except for Tinga
Tingana when there was no Cimel sun photometer data available. The MOD04
and Deep blue data are derived for a 10 km x 10 km grid over the test sites. The
RC data is derived for a 1.25 km x 1.25 km grid generally over the test sites but
may be from a grid or pixel up to 1.25 km from the site if the daily retrieval over

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the site fails. All of the data is for AOD at 550 nm. The MOD04 and Deep Blue
algorithms do not directly retrieve AOD at 550 nm but instead interpolate from
AOD values in other bands. The RC algorithm only retrieves AOD at 550 nm but
uses data from bands 3 and 5.
The comparisons for Merredin are inconclusive due to a lack of data. Deep blue
appears to perform better over Merredin, followed by the RC algorithms and
MOD04 performing worst.
Over Lake Argyle the RC algorithm and Deep Blue are reasonable close with
the RC algorithm performing slightly better. MOD04 is also reasonable at this
site. Both the MOD04 and Deep Blue algorithms underestimate the AOD
whereas the RC algorithm is fairly close to the ideal relationship.
There is no Deep Blue data for Jabiru. The other 2 algorithms both overestimate
the AOD with the MOD04 algorithm performing slightly better.
Over Birdsville neither the Deep Blue nor RC algorithm produce any useful
data. Both algorithms far overestimate the AOD. Birdsville is a very difficult
place to retrieve AOD from satellite data due to the high surface reflectance.
Tinga Tingana has the brightest surface of the five test sites. There is no
MOD04 data for Tinga Tingana as it is far too bright for the algorithm to work.
Figure 5 shows Deep Blue data as well as data from the RC algorithm for both
band 3 and band 5 retrievals. The data shows that neither Deep Blue nor RC
algorithms perform particularly well. The exception to this can be found in the
bottom right plot of figure 5. This shows a comparison between sun photometer
data and the RC algorithm band 5 retrieval when the surface reflectance is
greater than 0.5. This comparison shows and RMS error of 0.0943 and an r2
value of 0.279 which far exceeds the fit statistics of the other comparisons. The
only problem with this comparison is that only 18 points from a possible 119
points remain once the surface reflectance limit is placed on the data. This still
far exceeds comparisons of band 3 with the photometer data even when the
best possible data is selected.
These results for the RC algorithm are comparable if not better than the MOD04
and Deep Blue algorithms which are designed to work over different surface
types and at far lower resolution. The RC algorithm is hoped will work over all
surface types. Figure 7 shows plots of reflectance change verses surface
reflectance for a number of changes in optical depth (OD). For a majority of
Australia an OD of 0.16 at 550 nm relates to an AOD of 0.06 at 550 nm. The
remaining component of the OD is due to ozone optical depth and Rayleigh
optical depth which are far more stable than the AOD which can change quite
rapidly. All of the plots in figure 7 have the same ozone optical depth and
Rayleigh optical depth so the plots are essential for changes in AOD. The plots
in figure 7 show that the sensitivity of reflectance change to changes in AOD
increase with lower surface reflectance in band 3 where typical surface
reflectances are less than 0.1. The plots also show that sensitivity increases
with increased surface reflectance for band 5 where typical surface reflectances
are greater than 0.45.

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The surface reflectance limits to give the minimum sensitivity to achieve good
results has not yet been determined. This limit selection is shown in figure 7.
The vertical lines show where, by experimentation, the separation of the AOD
traces, or the sensitivity, is great enough to produce acceptable correlations
between photometer data and the RC retrieved data. The surface reflectance
limit will change with different viewing and illumination geometries. Once this
has been determined a complete picture of where the RC algorithm will
successfully operate can be constructed.

Figure 7: Plots of reflectance change verses surface reflectance for sets of optical
depth (OD) changes. The reflectance change plots are produced by subtracting data
for the average OD (ln_τ) from data for 32 other optical depths. Only some of these OD
change plots are included here. These plots show that the sensitivity of reflectance
change to change in OD will occur with lower surface reflectance in band 3 and with
higher surface reflectance in band 5.

Conclusion
This work demonstrates that using BRF derived surface reflectance and
reflectance change products from MODIS data to determine AOD is viable.
MOD04 and Deep Blue provide AOD data for 10 km x 10 km pixels with each
designed for different applications. MOD04 is limited to lower reflective surfaces
whereas Deep Blue is specifically designed for bright surfaces. The RC
algorithm is hoped to be extended to produce AOD over all surface types at far
higher resolution. The RC data presented here is for pixels of 1.25 km x 1.25
km. The ability to retrieve AOD at higher resolution over a wide range of surface
types makes the RC algorithm a better candidate for inclusion in an
atmospheric correction scheme.
The next step in this process is to determine the limit of sensitivity for
reasonable retrievals. Once this has been accomplished the AOD retrievals
need to be included in the SMAC process to see that it produces better results
and does not introduce bigger uncertainties in the surface reflectance product.
It would also be of value to produce BRF and reflectance change products in
MODIS band 8 as this band has the lowest surface reflectance of all MODIS
bands. It is also the band most likely to be affected by atmospheric aerosol.
Sets of lookup files for band 8 have already been produced. This band is also

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the band primarily used by the Deep Blue algorithm. It is expected that band 8
will produce better results than band 3.

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