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Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET)
AEROSOL OPTICAL DEPTH AEROSOL INVERSIONS SOLAR FLUX OCEAN COLOR Maritime Aerosol Network
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The AERONET (AErosol RObotic NETwork) program is a federation of ground-based remote sensing aerosol networks established by NASA and PHOTONS (PHOtométrie pour le Traitement Opérationnel de Normalisation Satellitaire; Univ. of Lille 1, CNES, and CNRS-INSU) and is greatly expanded by networks (e.g., RIMA, AeroSpan, AEROCAN, NEON, and CARSNET) and collaborators from national agencies, institutes, universities, individual scientists, and partners. For more than 25 years, the project has provided long-term, continuous, and readily accessible public domain database of aerosol optical, microphysical and radiative properties for aerosol research and characterization, validation of satellite retrievals, and synergism with other databases. The network imposes standardization of instruments, calibration, processing and distribution.

AERONET collaboration provides globally distributed observations of spectral aerosol optical depth (AOD), inversion products, and precipitable water in diverse aerosol regimes. Version 3 AOD data are computed for three data quality levels: Level 1.0 (unscreened), Level 1.5 (cloud-screened and quality-controlled), and Level 2.0 (quality-assured). Inversions, precipitable water, and other AOD-dependent products are derived from these levels and may implement additional quality checks.

The AERONET - Ocean Color (AERONET-OC) is another component of the AERONET program, provides the additional capability of measuring the radiance emerging from the sea (i.e., normalized water-leaving radiance) with sun-photometers installed on offshore platforms like lighthouses, oceanographic and oil towers. Similarly, the Maritime Aerosol Network (MAN) component of the AERONET program provides ship-borne aerosol optical depth measurements from the Microtops II sun photometers. These instruments have been deployed periodically on ships of opportunity and research vessels to monitor aerosol properties over the World¿s Oceans. The Solar Radiation Network (SolRad-Net) provides high-frequency solar flux measurements and is collocated with AERONET sites.

The processing algorithms have evolved from Version 1.0 to Version 2.0 and now Version 3.0. The Version 3 databases are available from the AERONET and PHOTONS web sites. Version 2 data may be downloaded from the web site through 2018 and thereafter upon special request. New AERONET products will be released as new measurement techniques and algorithms are adopted and validated by the AERONET research community. The AERONET website also provides AERONET-related news, a description of research and operational activities, data visualization, web services, related Earth Science links, and an AERONET staff directory.

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

 
26 July 2023

    The AERONET-OC data (Normalized Water Leaving Radiance) procedure of raising from Level 1.5 to Level 2.0 changed starting on July 2023. Previously expert-based quality control procedure (Zibordi et al. 2021) was applied to the qualified data (with final calibration and corresponding Level 2 AOD). Now the automated quality control procedure (Zibordi et al. 2022) is applied to all data not formerly quality controlled by March 2022 and upcoming data.

    Zibordi, G., Holben, B. N., Talone, M., D'Alimonte, D., Slutsker, I., Giles, D. M., & Sorokin, M. G. (2021). Advances in the ocean color component of the aerosol robotic network (AERONET-OC). Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 38(4), 725-746.

    Zibordi, G., D'Alimonte, D., & Kajiyama, T. (2022). Automated Quality Control of AERONET-OC LWN Data. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 39(12), 1961-1972.

10 November 2021
 
23 July 2019
+ DRAGON FIREX-AQ
 
12 February 2019
+ Inversion Uncertainty Estimates and Provisional Lunar AOD Announcement
 
11 January 2019
+AERONET Version 3 manuscript published in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques
 
 
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Aerosol Optical Depths during 2023 Canadian Wildfires

The ongoing 2023 Canadian wildfires, which started at the beginning of March and peaked during the month of June, have released massive amounts of aerosols and gases in the atmosphere that darkened the skies of major cities in eastern North America, such as Chicago, Washington D.C., New York City, and Montreal. The AERONET network in North America is monitoring and making continuous measurements of atmospheric aerosols, which can help understand their influence on local and regional air quality and their longer-term impact on climate. AERONET maintains a wide array of evenly distributed sun photometer sites with instruments that record optical depths and publish those measurements in near real-time. The animated map shows the daily average aerosol optical depth (AOD) at 500 nm from June 26th to July 2nd, 2023, measured across AERONET sites in the contiguous United States and southern Canada.

 

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Last Updated: July 27, 2023