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MODIS Standard Validation

MODIS Atmosphere product quality is maintained through close collaboration among its QA, calibration, and validation components. MODIS atmosphere validation follows a fundamental philosophy that to validate these products, we necessarily need to validate the specific atmospheric parameters under widely different atmospheric conditions as well as ecosystems globally. The MODIS atmosphere science team uses a wide variety of validation methods to characterize the uncertainty component in their data. Each algorithm developer incorporates his/her own approach for validating particular data. Validation approaches may include the following: 

  • Coordination and collocation with higher resolution aircraft data
  • Intercomparison of measurements with the following data:
    • Those derived from different validation campaigns (satellite, airborne, surface, in situ).
    • Unique validation datasets (Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET), etc.).
    • Satellite-derived measurements from other platforms and sensors (Terra vs. Aqua , MISR , AIRS , AMSR CloudSat, CALIOP, POLDER, etc.).
  • Focused field campaigns within specific locations and environmental conditions to generate a long time-series of selected measurements from well-distributed validation sites.

A summary of MODIS Atmosphere Data Issues (and fixes) is available in the Data Issues section.

An archival Validation Plan from 2001 is available for review.  Some of the information is a bit out of date, however it does provide some nice background information on how validation is performed in general.

Validation Plan (2001)