Global aerosol climatology from the MODIS satellite sensors

The recently released Collection 5 Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aerosol products provide a consistent record of the Earth's aerosol system. Comparing with ground‐based AERONET observations of aerosol optical depth (AOD) we find that Collection 5 MODIS aerosol products estimate AOD to within expected accuracy more than 60% of the time over ocean and more than 72% of the time over land. This is similar to previous results for ocean and better than the previous results for land. However, the new collection introduces a 0.015 offset between the Terra and Aqua global mean AOD over ocean, where none existed previously. Aqua conforms to previous values and expectations while Terra is higher…