The DOI matches its Crossref record; 68 of the 68 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The MERRA-2 Aerosol Reanalysis, 1980 Onward. Part II: Evaluation and Case Studies
Open accessAbstract
The Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, version 2 (MERRA-2), is NASA’s latest reanalysis for the satellite era (1980 onward) using the Goddard Earth Observing System, version 5 (GEOS-5), Earth system model. MERRA-2 provides several improvements over its predecessor (MERRA-1), including aerosol assimilation for the entire period. MERRA-2 assimilates bias-corrected aerosol optical depth (AOD) from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer and the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments. Additionally, MERRA-2 assimilates (non bias corrected) AOD from the Multiangle Imaging SpectroRadiometer over bright surfaces and AOD from Aerosol Robotic Network sunphotometer stations. This paper, the second of a pair, summarizes the efforts to assess the quality of the MERRA-2 aerosol products. First, MERRA-2 aerosols are evaluated using independent observations. It is shown that the MERRA-2 absorption aerosol optical depth (AAOD) and ultraviolet aerosol index (AI) compare well with Ozone Monitoring Instrument observations. Next, aerosol vertical structure and surface fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) are evaluated using available satellite, aircraft, and ground-based observations. While MERRA-2 generally compares well to these observations, the assimilation cannot correct for all deficiencies in the model (e.g., missing emissions). Such deficiencies can explain many of the biases with observations. Finally, a focus is placed on several major aerosol events to illustrate successes and weaknesses of the AOD assimilation: the Mount Pinatubo eruption, a Saharan dust transport episode, the California Rim Fire, and an extreme pollution event over China. The article concludes with a summary that points to best practices for using the MERRA-2 aerosol reanalysis in future studies.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
The Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2)
Gelaro, R., McCarty, W., Suárez, M. J., Todling, R., Molod, A., Takacs, L., Randles, C. A., Darmenov, A., Bosilovich, M. G., Reichle, R., et al. (2017) · Journal of Climate · doi:10.1175/jcli-d-16-0758.1 · Cited by 9,010
Self-citationAERONET—A Federated Instrument Network and Data Archive for Aerosol Characterization
Holben, B. N., Eck, T. F., Slutsker, I., Tanré, D., Buis, J. P., Setzer, A., Vermote, E., Reagan, J. A., Kaufman, Y. J., Nakajima, T., et al. (1998) · Remote Sensing of Environment · doi:10.1016/s0034-4257(98)00031-5 · Cited by 7,743
MERRA: NASA’s Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications
Rienecker, M. M., Suarez, M. J., Gelaro, R., Todling, R., Bacmeister, J., Liu, E., Bosilovich, M. G., Schubert, S. D., Takacs, L., Kim, G.-K., et al. (2011) · Journal of Climate · doi:10.1175/jcli-d-11-00015.1 · Cited by 4,852
Self-citationOptical Properties of Aerosols and Clouds: The Software Package OPAC
Hess, M., Koepke, P., & Schult, I. (1998) · Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society · doi:10.1175/1520-0477(1998)079<0831:opoaac>2.0.co;2 · Cited by 2,909
Overview of the CALIPSO Mission and CALIOP Data Processing Algorithms
Winker, D. M., Vaughan, M. A., Omar, A., Hu, Y., Powell, K. A., Liu, Z., Hunt, W. H., & Young, S. A. (2009) · Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology · doi:10.1175/2009jtecha1281.1 · Cited by 2,600
Fine-Particulate Air Pollution and Life Expectancy in the United States
Pope, C. A., Ezzati, M., & Dockery, D. W. (2009) · New England Journal of Medicine · doi:10.1056/nejmsa0805646 · Cited by 2,218
Interannual variability in global biomass burning emissions from 1997 to 2004
van der Werf, G. R., Randerson, J. T., Giglio, L., Collatz, G. J., Kasibhatla, P. S., & Arellano, A. F. (2006) · Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics · doi:10.5194/acp-6-3423-2006 · Cited by 1,656
van Donkelaar, A., Martin, R. V., Brauer, M., Kahn, R., Levy, R., Verduzco, C., & Villeneuve, P. J. (2010) · Environmental Health Perspectives · doi:10.1289/ehp.0901623 · Cited by 1,623
Chin, M., Ginoux, P., Kinne, S., Torres, O., Holben, B. N., Duncan, B. N., Martin, R. V., Logan, J. A., Higurashi, A., & Nakajima, T. (2002) · Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences · doi:10.1175/1520-0469(2002)059<0461:taotft>2.0.co;2 · Cited by 1,540
Randles, C. A., da Silva, A. M., Buchard, V., Colarco, P. R., Darmenov, A., Govindaraju, R., Smirnov, A., Holben, B., Ferrare, R., Hair, J., et al. (2017) · Journal of Climate · doi:10.1175/jcli-d-16-0609.1 · Cited by 1,469
Self-citation
Research works printed but not linked: 6
- 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2015.11.004 · doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2015.11.004
- 10.5194/acp-5-2385-2005 · doi:10.5194/acp-5-2385-2005
- 10.1364/AO.47.006734 · doi:10.1364/ao.47.006734
- 10.1029/1998JD200086 · doi:10.1029/1998jd200086
- 10.1080/10962247.2015.1096862 · doi:10.1080/10962247.2015.1096862
- 10.5194/amt-8-3647-2015 · doi:10.5194/amt-8-3647-2015
Cited by
Di, Q., Amini, H., Shi, L., Kloog, I., Silvern, R., Kelly, J., Sabath, M. B., Choirat, C., Koutrakis, P., Lyapustin, A., et al. (2019) · Environment International · doi:10.1016/j.envint.2019.104909 · Cited by 733
Gueymard, C. A., & Yang, D. (2020) · Atmospheric Environment · doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2019.117216 · Cited by 292
Tilmes, S., Mills, M. J., Zhu, Y., Bardeen, C. G., Vitt, F., Yu, P., Fillmore, D., Liu, X., Toon, B., & Deshler, T. (2023) · Geoscientific Model Development · doi:10.5194/gmd-16-6087-2023 · Cited by 35
Intercomparison of aerosol optical depths from four reanalyses and their multi-reanalysis consensus
Xian, P., Reid, J. S., Ades, M., Benedetti, A., Colarco, P. R., da Silva, A., Eck, T. F., Flemming, J., Hyer, E. J., Kipling, Z., et al. (2024) · Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics · doi:10.5194/acp-24-6385-2024 · Cited by 32
Self-citation
Metadata
- Authors
- Buchard, V., Randles, C. A., da Silva, A. M., Darmenov, A., Colarco, P. R., Govindaraju, R., Ferrare, R., Hair, J., Beyersdorf, A. J., Ziemba, L. D., & Yu, H.
- Venue
- Journal of Climate
- Publisher
- American Meteorological Society
- Published
- 2017-09
- Volume
- 30
- Issue
- 17
- Pages
- 6851-6872
- ISSN
- 0894-8755 (ISSN-L)
- 1520-0442
- OpenAlex
- W2626032231
- Cited by
- 912
- References
- 68
- FWCI
- 29.51
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- Funders
- Goddard Space Flight Center
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: The MERRA-2 Aerosol Reanalysis, 1980 Onward. Part II: Evaluation and Case Studies. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1175/jcli-d-16-0613.1
- The paper
- Buchard, V., Randles, C. A., da Silva, A. M., Darmenov, A., Colarco, P. R., Govindaraju, R., Ferrare, R., Hair, J., Beyersdorf, A. J., Ziemba, L. D., & Yu, H. (2017). The MERRA-2 Aerosol Reanalysis, 1980 Onward. Part II: Evaluation and Case Studies. Journal of Climate. https://doi.org/10.1175/jcli-d-16-0613.1
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
