| Popis: |
High-mountain protected areas are of great interest from the ecological perspective and have a strong impact on the socioeconomic system. However, protected areas such as National Parks, are scarcely investigated from the climatological point of view. Furthermore, the aerosol loading at high elevation locations is not fully characterized. Thus, the analysis of the aerosol optical depth (AOD) in these areas is crucial to assess the role of aerosols in regional climate change and in several ecosystem processes.We have analyzed the long-term AOD ground-based and satellite remote sensing data in order to provide an accurate picture of the aerosol loading from local to regional scale, respectively. In addition, reanalysis data has been used to provide information of the aerosol typing at larger scale. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Version 6 global Multi-Angle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC) (hereafter MODIS+MAIAC) provides daily AOD data at 1 km spatial resolution. The ground-based AOD dataset is obtained from the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) over Granada (South-Eastern Iberian Peninsula) and the high-mountain protected area of Sierra Nevada. Specifically, there are three AERONET stations in the region of interest: Granada at 680 m above sea level (a.s.l), Cerro Poyos at 1809 m a.s.l. and Albergue UGR at 2500 m a.s.l., which have been used for validation. Additionally, the latest reanalysis data from MERRA-2 has been employed for aerosol typing at regional scale, with a spatial resolution of 55 km x 69 km, covering the city of Granada and Sierra Nevada high-mountain protected area.In this study, we will present the validation results of AODs from MODIS+MAIAC and MERRA-2 against AERONET stations at different altitudes. Moreover, a trend analysis of the AOD for the long-term database at the different seasons is investigated. Finally, the classification of the major aerosol types at regional scale has been performed, indicating the dominant aerosol types and the increase of Saharan dust events in the recent years over the high-mountain protected area of Sierra Nevada. |
