Changes in Aerosol Optical Depth over the Arctic Ocean as Seen by CALIOP, MAIAC, and MODIS C6.1

Due to the recent increase in Arctic shipping, 2006-2020 June to October Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP), Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Collection 6.1 (C6.1), and Multi-Angle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC) retrieved aerosol optical depth (AOD) data were examined for changes in AOD from period 1 (P1, 2006-2012) to period 2 (P2, 2014-2020 (P2). Herein, AOD was statistically analyzed on a 0.25° × 0.25° grid and in the airsheds over the various ocean basins over the Arctic north of 59.75°N. According to heatmaps of the correlation between AOD and ship traffic, and AOD and fire emissions for the airsheds, all three AOD products captured the observed inter-annual variability in wildfire occurrence well, and showed wildfire emissions over Siberia were more severe in P2 than P1. Except for the Atlantic, North, and Baltic Seas, Beaufort Sea, and Barents Sea, all three AOD products indicated that AOD was higher over the various basins in P2 than P1, but disagreed on the magnitude. This fact suggests that the detection of changes in the typical low AOD over the Arctic Ocean might be rather qualitative than quantitative. While all products captured increases in AOD due to ships at berth, only MODIS C6.1 caught the elevated AOD due to shipping on the Siberian rivers. Obviously, sub-daily resolutions are required to capture increased AOD due to short-term events like a traveling ship or short-interval fire.