Exploiting GOCI-II UV Channel to Observe Absorbing Aerosols

On 19 February 2020, the 2nd Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI-II), a maritime sensor of GEO-KOMPSAT-2B, was launched. The GOCI-II instrument expands the scope of aerosol retrieval research with its improved performance compared to the former instrument (GOCI). In particular, the newly included UV band at 380 nm plays a significant role in improving the sensitivity of GOCI-II observations to the absorbing aerosols. In this study, we calculated the aerosol index and detected absorbing aerosols from January to June 2021 using GOCI-II 380 and 412 nm channels. Compared to the TROPOMI aerosol index, the GOCI-II aerosol index showed a positive bias, but the dust pixels still could be clearly distinguished from the cloud and clear pixels. The high GOCI-II aerosol index coincided with ground-based observations indicating dust aerosols were detected. We found that 70.5% of dust and 80% of moderately-absorbing fine aerosols detected from the ground had GOCI-II aerosol indices larger than the 75th percentile through the whole study period.