Evaluating Satellite-Based Measurements for Mapping Air Quality in Ontario, Canada

Abstract

This paper presents a study of examining the correlation between the satellite observations and the ground-based measurements of air quality in Ontario, Canada. Two atmospheric parameters-total ozone burden (TOB), and aerosol optical depth (AOD) data-were extracted from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) atmosphere data products. TOB and AOD were then compared with the coincident ground-based ozone concentration (GOC) and fine particular matter (PM2.5) in summer and winter seasons, respectively. The comparison results showed that AOD was most strongly related with coincident hourly PM2.5 in summer, while TOB and coincident hourly GOC have shown their fairly strong correlation in winter. The correlation between MODIS measurement and ground monitoring data in summer seems independent from those in winter. This is the first study to demonstrate that the correlation between the satellite measurement and ground monitoring data varied in different seasons. The air quality distribution obtained from satellite images has a much better correspondence with the regional morphology than those interpolated from ground measurements.

Keywords: Air pollution, correlation, ground-measurement, MODIS, remote sensing