Abstract:Himawari-8 is a new generation of geostationary meteorological satellite launched by Japan Meteorological Administration. The sensor AHI (Advanced Himawari Imager) carried by Himawari-8 can achieve high temporal resolution observation for 10 minutes/time.. Level 2 Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) dataset from Himawari-8 satellite was compared to AERONET AOD at 70 sites from September 2015 to December 2017. The results show that the precision of AOD products retrieved by Himawari-8 satellite has great spatial difference. Among them, there are 48 sites where there is a good correlation between Himawari-8 AOD and AERONET AOD (R>0.5). The Himawari-8 AOD clearly underestimated ground-based AOD at 22 sites. At the sites of American_Samoa, Bandung, Birdsville, Bukit_Kototabang, Canberra, Fowlers_Gap, Jabiru, QOMS_CAS, etc., ground-based AOD are small and Himawari-8 satellite retrived AOD is large. Analysis of the absolute error (difference between Himawari-8 AOD and AERONET AOD) found that there is a good correlation between absolute error and AERONET AOD when the Himawari-8 AOD underestimates ground-based observations. In areas where ground-based observations are small and satellite inversion datas is large, there is a good linear relationship between absolute error and Himawari-8 AOD. This provides useful basic information for the improvement and perfection of Himawari-8 AOD inversion algorithm.