The detailed evaluation is to be found in Vandenbussche et al., 2026 and a specific profile validation paper is in preparation. Here we only show some figures from the papers, with no discussion or interpretation.
Please also consider the fact that no validation data exists that has been obtained in the thermal infrared (TIR) range (around 10µm, the wavelength range used for the MAPIR retrievals), and therefore the data evaluation is hindered by many assumptions necessary to convert the AOD from the TIR to visible wavelengths. Please read section 3.2 in the algorithm paper about that.
Aerosol Optical Depth evaluation with AERONET
MAPIR v5.1 comparisons for IASI-A (a, b, c) and IASI-C (d, e, f) dust AOD converted to 550 nm against AERONET solar SDA CAOD at 500 nm. (a, d) Density plot of AOD, MAPIR versus AERONET, with its linear regression and equation; (b, e) Scatter plot of the MAPIR AOD bias versus the AERONET AOD, with bins of equal number of points. (c, f) Histograms of the MAPIR AOD bias
Correlation coefficient between MAPIR v5.1 comparisons for IASI-A dust AOD converted to 550 nm and AERONET solar SDA CAOD at 500 nm, for all stations with at least 100 colocations
Time series of all AERONET (solar and lunar) SDA CAOD at 500 nm and of MAPIR IASI-A and IASI-C dust AOD converted to 550 nm (separated day and night) for the time span with available AERONET data, at (a) the Dakar Belair AERONET station and (b) the Ragged Point station. Note that these are full data series, not only colocations.
Profile evaluation against CALIOP (qualitative)
Comparison of CALIOP and IASI-A MAPIR for 28 October 2018, night-time (left and center) and 19 June 2020 day-time using IASI-C MAPIR data (right). (a) CALIOP aerosol type; (b) CALIOP 532 nm extinction for the aerosol types “dust”, “polluted dust” and “dusty marine”; (c) IASI-A MAPIR dust concentration profile along the selected CALIOP orbit part; (d) IASI-A MAPIR dust AOD (daily average), with the track of CALIOP for the selected orbit part.
References
- Vandenbussche, S., Biskas, C., Koukouli, M.-E., Kazadzis, S., and De Mazière, M.: The mineral aerosol profiling from infrared radiances version 5.1 algorithm and its evaluation, Atmospheric Measurement Techniques, 19, 4889–4922, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-19-4889-2026, 2026.
- Profile evaluation paper in preparation
