Towards gridded nighttime aerosol optical thickness retrievals using VIIRS day–night band observations over regions with artificial light sources

Zhang, Jianglong; Reid, Jeffrey S.; Sorenson, Blake T.; Miller, Steven D.; Román, Miguel O.; Wang, Zhuosen; Spurr, Robert J. D.; Jaker, Shawn; Eck, Thomas F.; Rubin, Juli I.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1787-2025

Articles | Volume 18, issue 8

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1787-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1787-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 8

Research article

|

24 Apr 2025

Research article |

| 24 Apr 2025

Towards gridded nighttime aerosol optical thickness retrievals using VIIRS day–night band observations over regions with artificial light sources

Jianglong Zhang, Jeffrey S. Reid, Blake T. Sorenson, Steven D. Miller, Miguel O. Román, Zhuosen Wang, Robert J. D. Spurr, Shawn Jaker, Thomas F. Eck, and Juli I. Rubin

Data sets

NASA's Black Marble nighttime lights product suite (10.5067/VIIRS/VNP46A3.001) M. O. Román et al. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2018.03.017

Short summary

Using observations from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite day–night band, we developed a method for constructing gridded nighttime aerosol optical thickness (AOT) data based on the spatial derivative of measured top-of-atmosphere attenuated upwelling artificial lights at night. The gridded nighttime AOT retrievals, compared against Aerosol Robotic Network data, show reasonable skill levels for potential data assimilation, air quality, and climate studies of significant events.