Global Annual PM2.5 Grids from MODIS, MISR, SeaWiFS and VIIRS Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD), 1998-2022, V5.GL.04

The Global Annual PM2.5 Grids from MODIS, MISR, SeaWiFS and VIIRS Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD), 1998-2022, V5.GL.04 consists of annual concentrations (micrograms per cubic meter) of all composition (i.e. total) ground-level fine particulate matter (PM2.5). This data set combines AOD retrievals from multiple satellite algorithms including the NASA MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer Collection 6.1 (MODIS C6.1), Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer Version 23 (MISRv23), MODIS Multi-Angle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction Collection 6 (MAIAC C6), the Sea-Viewing Wide Field-of-View Sensor (SeaWiFS) Deep Blue Version 4, along with the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). The GEOS-Chem chemical transport model is used to initially relate this total column measure of aerosol to near-surface PM2.5 concentration. Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) is used with global ground-based measurements from the World Health Organization (WHO) database and available regional networks to predict and adjust for the residual PM2.5 bias per grid cell in the initial satellite-derived values. These estimates are primarily intended to aid in large-scale studies. Gridded data sets are provided at a resolution of 0.01 degrees to allow users to agglomerate data as best meets their particular needs. Data sets are gridded at the finest resolution of the information sources that were incorporated, but do not fully resolve PM2.5 gradients at the gridded resolution due to influence by information sources at coarser resolution. The data are distributed as GeoTIFF and netCDF files and are in WGS84 projection.
To provide annual global surface concentrations (micrograms per cubic meter) of all composition ground-level fine particulate matter less than or equal to 2.5 microns in diameter (PM2.5) for large-scale health and environmental research.