Cloud Optical Depth, a new product of AERONET

A new AERONET (Aerosol RObotic NETwork) product is already available on the AERONET website: ‘Cloud Optical Depth’ available on the AERONET website.  By the moment AERONET is raising this new product to level 1.5 or ‘provisional’ until more experience was gained with the operational product and can define a quality assured product.  To access the data, please go to the AERONET webpage (http://aeronet.gsfc.nasa.gov) and click on the ‘Cloud MODE’ button on the lower left side menu. About 35 instruments have the cloud mode activated.  The Izana station is one of them. This mode is only recommended for sites that are closely monitored and have the proper surface background that allows retrieval of Cloud Optical Depth.  This mode does not affect the usual sun and sky measurements/retrievals but is only activated when clouds obscure the sun.  This product is the result of nearly ten years of effort by Alexander Marshak, Christine Chiu and Stefani Huang.  Please see the ‘News’ on the AERONET webpage for further details such as retrieval method, quality level, etc.  Stefani Huang is monitoring the data from the cloud mode instruments and can provide further information at:  chiung-huei.huang@nasa.gov   Also note the pertinent articles on the cloud mode under the ‘Publications’ section of the AERONET webpage.