In-depth bibliometric analysis of over five decades of Aerosol Optical Depth revealing trends, key contributors, and new research directions.

Numerous studies have shown that air pollutants affect climatic change, air quality, and public health and how particulate matter (PM2.5, PM10) contributes to respiratory and environmental impacts. This study comprehensively examines aerosol optical depths and thicknesses, climate connections, and pollution-related health impacts using bibliometric and visualization analyses. We retrieved documents from the Scopus database regarding aerosol optical depth/thickness between 1960 and 2025. A total of 4,131 documents were initially generated. Articles and conferences were selected as document types for a more comprehensive analysis. Filtering from Earth and planetary sciences, physics and astronomy, and environmental science documents, we generated 3,542 documents. We explored VOSviewer, Python, and MapChart. The United States of America has 1,202, 35.86% (73,523); China 518, 14.62% (10,230); France 419, 11.83% (25,370); Germany 376, 10.62% (17,013); and Japan 371, 10.47% (10,888) papers published and citations, respectively. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States, was the journal with the highest number of papers published, with 74 documents and 7,380 citations. The most common occurring terms are “aerosols,” “aerosol optical depth/thickness,” and “air quality.” This study was novel because it was the first bibliometric analysis based on aerosol optical depth that used data retrieved from Scopus for visualization and network mapping. Highest publication was observed in 2011 with a drop in 2020. Researchers needs to continue to investigate aerosol optical depth/thickness of growing global climatic change and weather dynamics.