Analysis on the Quality of Aerosol Optical Thickness Data Derived from NPP VIIRS and Aqua MODIS over Western Region of Indonesia

Preliminary analysis on quality data of Aerosol Optical Thickness/Depth or AOT/AOD derived from NPP VIIRS EDR (Environmental Data Record) has been done in previous work. Qualitative analysis of the previous work revealed that AOT data of VIIRS had insufficient quality due to some factors such as sun glint and cloud cover. However the accuracy of AOT VIIRS data over western area of Indonesia has not been investigated. Therefore this paper describes further analysis on AOT VIIRS data quality and accuracy. Comparison with AOT derived from Aqua MODIS data was implemented since AOT of MODIS has verified well with AOT data from field observation. Examination on cloud masking intermediate product of VIIRS was done for its importance in AOT data processing and persistent cloud cover obstacle over Indonesia. We used VIIRS and MODIS data archieved by LAPAN ground station. Further analysis on sun glint and cloud masking images indicates that these two intermediate products predominantly affect the quality of AOT from VIIRS and MODIS over the study areas. Compared with AOT of MODIS, AOT of VIIRS seems to result more pixels consisting AOT information over the same area and date. The statistical results showed that AOT values of VIIRS highly correlated with AOT values of MODIS with R2 of 78%. The accuracy of AOT derived from VIIRS was adequate as indicated by RMSE of 0.0977 or less than 0.5 for the samples over Sumatra, Borneo, and Java islands. Visual comparison of AOT images indicates that VIIRS data could result more detailed AOT values than MODIS data. Therefore the AOT of VIIRS data could be recommended for further applications in western area of Indonesia