Aerosol products

The primary products are daily, weekly, and monthly global 1 degree maps of Aerosol Optical Thickness (AOT). The weekly products are based on a
composite of one week's worth of data, and the monthly mean products are based on the average of each week's data for the month. The Aerosol fields
and contour charts are produced from NOAA-16 AVHRR data.

Optical thickness, or optical depth, is a dimensionless quantity that indicates the amount of depletion that a beam of radiation undergoes as it passes
through a layer of the atmosphere. Optical depth is a function of the density, composition, temperature, pressure, and volume of the layer.

These products are archived at the National Climatic Data Center in both hardcopy chart and digital dataset form.

Global Images of Aerosol Optical Thickness Data

Time Frame	Colored Field	Contoured Field	Colored Contour Lines	Filled Contour	Composite Contoured Aerosol and Colored Obs Age	Composite Contoured Aerosol and Colored Obs #
Daily Analysis
Weekly Composite
Monthly Mean					not available	not available

Aerosol Optical Thickness Experimental Daily Analysis Color Images

Aerosol Optical Thickness Weekly Composite Color Images

Aerosol 1.6 micron Optical Thickness Experimental Weekly Composite Color Images

Aerosol Optical Thickness Monthly Mean Color Image

Documentation:

Aerosol Documentation from NOAA KLM User's Guide

A very useful and thorough document on the NOAA series of satellites is the Polar Orbiter Data User's Guide, compiled and edited by Katherine Kidwell.

Our Research Collaborators

Last Modified December 10, 2003 (jw)

Contact Environmental Products team.

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NOAA/NESDIS/OSDPD; Revised December 10, 2003