Urban nighttime aerosol optical depth retrieval methods from SDGSAT-1 glimmer data

Abstract

Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) is vital for assessing air quality and climate. Nighttime lights (NTL) provide a new data source for urban AOD inversion, but current NTL data suffer from low spatial resolution, limiting detailed AOD studies in smaller urban areas and hindering high-precision AOD algorithms. This study introduces methods for retrieving AOD using Glimmer Imager (GLI) data from the newly launched SDGSAT-1. Three methods were proposed: the standard deviation method, look-up-table method, and collaborative inversion method with VIIRS Day Night Band (DNB) data. Applied to Beijing, these methods produced a 10 m resolution AOD product. The look-up-table method achieved the highest correlation (R = 0.8876) compared to the standard deviation (R = 0.8224) and collaborative inversion (R = 0.8322) methods. The look-up-table method performed best with ample data, while the collaborative inversion method proved more reliable with limited data. These findings demonstrate the effectiveness of SDGSAT-1 GLI data in accurately retrieving nighttime AOD, offering significant potential for monitoring urban pollution.

Keywords

• Nighttime lights
• aerosol optical depth
• SDGSAT-1
• VIIRS/DNB
• urban pollution