Comparisons of the mineral dust optical thickness retrieved from Geostationary Meteorological Satellite with ground-based radiometer measurements

Abstract Optical thickness of the Asian dust aerosols over the ocean near Japan was retrieved from the visible data of the Geostationary Meteorological Satellite (GMS-5) from April 7 to 22, 2002 using the method by Masuda et al. [Remote Sens. Environ. 82 (2002) 238] in which the nonsphericity of dust particles was taken into account. The retrieved optical thicknesses were then compared with those derived from the sunphotometer and the skyradiometer measurements. The mean and the standard deviation of the optical thickness difference, GMS minus radiometers, were −0.03 and 0.17, respectively, for 85 samples where the optical thickness ranges from 0.25 to 1.07.