Benchmarking of essential climate variables: Gamma index theory and results for surface albedo and aerosol optical depth

• Published in: Remote sensing of environment Vol. 203; pp. 90 - 100
• Main Authors: Cappucci, Fabrizio, Gobron, Nadine
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 15.12.2017; Elsevier BV; American Elsevier Pub. Co
• Subjects: Acceptance criteria; Aerosol optical depth; Aerosols; Albedo; Benchmarks; Broadband; Climate; Climate change; Climate variability; Climatic indexes; Earth observation; Earth stations; Essential climate variable; Fitness; Fitness-for-purpose; Gamma index; Gamma rays; Global climate; I.R. radiation; Near infrared radiation; Optical analysis; Sky; Spatial data; Spatial discrimination; Spatial resolution; Studies; Surface albedo; Temporal variability; Terrestrial environments; Tolerances; Essential climate variable; Surface albedo; Fitness-for-purpose; Earth observation; Aerosol optical depth; Acceptance criteria; Gamma index
• ISSN: 0034-4257; 1879-0704
• DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2017.06.004

This paper proposes a benchmarking method for assessing the level of spatio-temporal variability of Essential Climate Variable (ECV) products against a reference taking into account acceptance criteria in terms of intensity and physical distance tolerances. This is based on a modified version of the gamma index that could be suitable for fitness-for-purpose assessment given that one can choose various criteria depending on applications. The method is first presented and then applied to both land and atmospheric ECVs. The terrestrial analysis concerns the global surface albedo, using monthly white-sky surface albedo in the visible, near-infrared and shortwave broadband spectral ranges at a spatial resolution of 0.05° using three sources of products. The latter study is conducted using monthly aerosol optical depth (AOD) products at 550nm at a spatial resolution of 1° with four different datasets at the global scale. The analysis shows how the values of the gamma criteria impact the spatial and temporal results. As an example, if the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) actual target measurements uncertainty is used as an acceptance criteria for the intensity tolerance the results show that: 1) the seasonal agreement for the surface albedo products varies over 20% to 40% of the terrestrial surface in the shortwave and near-infrared broadband and from 10% to 30% in the visible one and 2) the three aerosols optical depth products agree with the reference one for over 50% of the land surface only when the tolerance distance term is at 224km. •A novel benchmarking method based the Gamma-Index (GI).•GI assess spatial-temporal quality of ECV versus tolerance criteria.•Surface albedo agrees over 40% of land with GCOS target-uncertainty.•AOD agrees over 50% of land if distance tolerance is 224km.