The VIIRS/NOAA20 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_ NOAA20) 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 nm 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.

The Deep Blue algorithm draws its heritage from previous applications to retrieve AOT from Sea‐viewing Wide Field‐of‐view Sensor (SeaWiFS) over both land and ocean and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) measurements over land. This L2 description pertains to the VIIRS Deep Blue Aerosol Version 2.0 (V2.0) product, whose record starts from February 17, 2018.

The L2 netCDF product, acquired every 6 minutes, contains 55 Science Data Set (SDS) layers. The V2.0 VIIRS deep blue aerosol products are available from both NOAA20 and SNPP platforms. Significant changes have been made to the V2.0 Deep Blue/SOAR algorithms to further improve the data quality. 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_NOAA20

Consult the VIIR Deep Blue product user guide for additional information regarding the global attributes, data field attributes, quality flags, software to handle and use these data products, etc., at: https://ladsweb.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/v2/content/archives/Document%20Archive/Science%20Data%20Product%20Documentation/VIIRS_Deep_Blue_Aerosol_User_Guide_v2.pdf