HIGH RESOLUTION AEROSOL OPTICAL DEPTH MAPPING OF BEIJING USING LANSAT8 IMAGERY

Abstract. Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) is one of the most important parameters in the atmospheric correction of remote sensing images. We present a new method of per pixel AOD retrieval using the imagery of Landsat8. It is based on Second Simulation of the Satellite Signal in the Solar Spectrum (6S). General dark target method takes dense vegetation pixels as dark targets and derives their 550nm AODs directly from the LUT, and interpolates the AODs of other pixels according to spatial neighbourhood using those of dark target pixels. This method will down estimate the AOD levels for urban areas. We propose an innovative method to retrieval the AODs using multiple temporal data. For a pixel which has nothing change between the associated time, there must exists an intersection of surface albedo. When there are enough data to find the intersection it ought to be a value that meet the error tolerance. In this paper, we present an example of using three temporal Landsat ETM+ image to retrieve AOD taking Beijing as the testing area. The result is compared to the commonly employed dark target algorithm to show the effectiveness of the methods.