VIIRS/SNPP Deep Blue Aerosol L2 6-Min Swath 6km

The VIIRS/SNPP Deep Blue Aerosol L2 6-Min Swath 6 km product from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) determines atmospheric aerosol loading for daytime cloud-free snow-free scenes. This orbit-level product (Short-name: AERDB_L2_VIIRS_SNPP) has an at-nadir resolution of 6 km x 6 km, and progressively increases away from nadir given the sensor’s scanning geometry and Earth’s curvature. Viewed differently, this product’s resolution accommodates 8 x 8 native VIIRS moderate-resolution (M-band) pixels that nominally have ~750 m horizontal pixel size. The L2 Deep Blue AOT data products, at 550 nanometers reference wavelengths, are derived from particular VIIRS bands using two primary AOT retrieval algorithms: Deep Blue algorithm over land, and the Satellite Ocean Aerosol Retrieval (SOAR) algorithm over ocean. Although this product is called Deep Blue based on retrievals for the land algorithm, the data includes over-water retrievals as well.

This L2 description pertains to the SNPP VIIRS Deep Blue Aerosol collection-1.1 (C1.1) product, whose record starts from March 1st 2012. The primary reason for generating this new C1.1 version is that it no longer contains out-of-valid-range pixels, except in the case of the solar zenith angle. A number of other improvements and changes have been added that can be found from Product page at:
https://ladsweb.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/missions-and-measurements/products/AERDB_L2_VIIRS_SNPP

For more information consult Deep Blue aerosol team Page at:
https://deepblue.gsfc.nasa.gov