Influence of the vertical profile of Saharan dust on the visible direct radiative forcing

The vertical profile of Saharan dust in the atmosphere is generally characterized by a large aerosol concentration in the mid troposphere, differently from the climatological distribution of other types of particles, that show a peak at the surface and a rapid decrease with height. Saharan dust is also characterized by particles of relatively large size of irregular shape, and variable values of the single scattering albedo (the ratio between radiation scattering and extinction). The dust's peculiar vertical distribution is expected to produce an effect on the calculation of the direct aerosol radiative forcing at the surface and at the top of the atmosphere. This effect is investigated by comparing estimates of aerosol direct visible radiative forcing at the surface and at the top of the atmosphere for dust vertical profiles measured in the Mediterranean, and for the climatological profile. The radiative forcing is estimated by means of an accurate radiative transfer model, and for the ocean surface. The sensitivity of the results on the solar zenith angle, aerosol optical depth, and aerosol absorption is also investigated. The aerosol radiative forcing at the surface shows a very small dependency on the aerosol vertical profile. At the top of the atmosphere, the radiative forcing is weakly dependent on the vertical profile (up to 10% variation on the daily average forcing) for low absorbing particles; conversely, it shows a strong dependency (the daily radiative forcing may vary up to 100%) for absorbing particles. The top of the atmosphere visible radiative forcing efficiency produced by dust having single scattering albedo <0.7 is higher by 4 W m⁻² when the observed vertical profile instead of the standard profile is used in the calculations (i.e. it produces a lower cooling). For values of the single scattering albedo around 0.67, the sign of the forcing depends on the vertical profile. The influence of the vertical distribution on the radiative forcing is largest at small values of the solar zenith angle, and at short wavelengths.     

黑碳团簇气溶胶混合生长的红外吸收特性及长波辐射效应

黑碳气溶胶是当前气溶胶辐射强迫评估中最不确定的因子.本文通过构建黑碳的微物理模型,分别模拟了新鲜状态的黑碳气溶胶和混合生长(老化)后被硫酸盐包裹的黑碳气溶胶,利用叠加T矩阵方法计算获得了具有团簇形态和多成分混合的黑碳气溶胶红外吸收特性,通过大气辐射传输模型模拟了黑碳气溶胶的长波辐射强迫,分析了典型理化参数的敏感性.发现黑碳混合生长可以显著增强其大气层顶的长波辐射强迫,最高可达3倍.而且,包裹黑碳的硫酸盐半径越大,将明显增强大气层顶的黑碳长波辐射强迫.这些发现将有助于降低黑碳气溶胶气候效应评估的不确定性.     

Effect of instrumental particle sizing resolution on the modelling of aerosol radiative parameters

A more realistic estimation of the scattering and hemispheric backscattering coefficients, σ_sp and σ_bsp, and their respective optical cross section, C_sca and C_bk, of aerosol particles is presented on the basis of the exact resolution of the width of the size bins of the particle counter instruments when size distribution measurements are used, and, with the exact optical detector instruments ability. The scattering and hemispheric backscattering cross sections, C_sca and C_bk, of the particles are averaged over the full size bins of the particle counter instrument, while these quantities are usually estimated only on the value of the mean geometric diameter of each size bin. Six instruments, the APS, ASASP-X, DMPS, FSSP-100, ELPI, and SMPS frequently used in particle size distribution measurements are reviewed, for spherical sea-salt particles at a wavelength λ=0.55 μm. The comparison using the conventional geometric mean diameter versus the use of the full size bin leads to large amount of errors for the optical cross section with non-negligible effects on their respective optical coefficients. The maximal accuracy expected for these optical quantities depend on the particle diameter as well as on the channel width of the instruments, and are also function of the angular detector probe used to measure them.     

The reflection and polarization properties of non-spherical aerosol particles

In this paper, we investigate the capability of multi-angle TOA reflectance and polarized reflectance for the retrieval of aerosol properties including aerosol mode (fine mode and coarse mode), aerosol shape (sphere and non-spherical), and aerosol optical thickness. Single-scattering parameters and phase-matrix elements were computed for randomly oriented non-spherical aerosol particles. Sensitivity indices were introduced to quantify the sensitivity of the TOA total reflectance and polarized reflectance to aerosol parameters. Finally, on the basis of the sensitivity study, this paper presents a conceptual approach toward the remote sensing of non-spherical aerosol three parameters (aerosol mode, aerosol shape, and aerosol optical thickness) using the TOA total reflectance and TOA polarized reflectance for the 0.865 μm spectral bands measured at multiple viewing angles.     

Resolution of the uncertainties in the radiative forcing of HFC-134a

HFC-134a (CF₃CH₂F) is the most rapidly growing hydrofluorocarbon in terms of atmospheric abundance. It is currently used in a large number of household refrigerators and air-conditioning systems and its concentration in the atmosphere is forecast to increase substantially over the next 50-100 years. Previous estimates of its radiative forcing per unit concentration have differed significantly ∼25%. This paper uses a two-step approach to resolve this discrepancy. In the first step six independent absorption cross section datasets are analysed. We find that, for the integrated cross section in the spectral bands that contribute most to the radiative forcing, the differences between the various datasets are typically smaller than 5% and that the dependence on pressure and temperature is not significant. A “recommended' HFC-134a infrared absorption spectrum was obtained based on the average band intensities of the strongest bands. In the second step, the “recommended' HFC-134a spectrum was used in six different radiative transfer models to calculate the HFC-134a radiative forcing efficiency. The clear-sky instantaneous radiative forcing, using a single global and annual mean profile, differed by 8%, between the 6 models, and the latitudinally-resolved adjusted cloudy sky radiative forcing estimates differed by a similar amount. We calculate that the radiative forcing efficiency of HFC-134a is .     

大气辐射传输模型的比较研究

 讨论了三种通用的大气辐射传输模型的特点和使用限制，用辐射传输定律作了数值检验，并与实验测量资料作了比较。结果表明，氧碘激光和氟化氢泛频20P4激光谱线大气透过率的计算值与实验测量值吻合，氟化氢泛频20P5却出现严重偏差。还研究了大气气溶胶种类对大气透过率计算和测量的严重影响。     

外强迫作用下正压大气非线性特征数值模拟

在两种边界条件下用正压大气非线性位势涡度方程模拟了强迫、耗散和非线性共同作用下大气运动的若干特征.在南北两端为齐次边界条件时，单纯的热力强迫下只出现了波状定常解；在只有经向加热和波状地形共同强迫下出现了在两种基本流型之间振荡的准周期解，十分类似于旋转地球上大气运动的纬向和经向流型之间的准周期循环，前者对应于强的西风环流，后者对应于弱西风流型.在周期边界条件下，弱的下垫面加热导致定常解，较强的加热强迫可以得到周期解.尽管下垫面的波状地形也能强迫一个类似的准周期振荡，但弱西风流型是对称的，不像大气中的弱西风流型.因此，在周期边界条件下用低阶截谱模式求出的解析或数值解，不一定适合描述中高纬度大气的非线性动力特征. 关键词： 正压大气 热力强迫 地形起伏 周期解 准周期振荡     

大气辐射传输模型的比较研究

讨论了三种通用的大气辐射传输模型的特点和使用限制,用辐射传输定律作了数值检验,并与实验测量资料作了比较。结果表明,氧碘激光和氟化氢泛频20P4激光谱线大气透过率的计算值与实验测量值吻合,氟化氢泛频20P5却出现严重偏差。还研究了大气气溶胶种类对大气透过率计算和测量的严重影响。     

Reverse electric field Monte Carlo simulation for vector radiative transfer in the atmosphere

In this paper, a reverse electric field Monte Carlo （REMC） method is proposed to study the vector radiation transfer in the atmosphere. The REMC is based on tracing the multiply scattered electric field to simulate the vector transmitted radiance. The reflected intensities with different total optical depth values are obtained, which accord well with the results in the previous research. Stokes vector and the degree of polarization are numerically investigated. The simulation result shows that when the solar zenith angle is determined, the zenith angle of detector has two points, of which the degree of polarization does not change with the ground albedo and the optical depth. The two points change regularly with the solar zenith angle. Moreover, our REMC method can be applied to the vector radiative transfer in the atmosphere-ocean system.     

Impact of ice particle shape on short-wave radiative forcing: A case study for an arctic ice cloud

We used four different non-spherical particle models to compute optical properties of an arctic ice cloud and to simulate corresponding cloud radiative forcings and fluxes. One important finding is that differences in cloud forcing, downward flux at the surface, and absorbed flux in the atmosphere resulting from the use of the four different ice cloud particle models are comparable to differences in these quantities resulting from changing the surface albedo from 0.4 to 0.8, or by varying the ice water content (IWC) by a factor of 2. These findings show that the use of a suitable non-spherical ice cloud particle model is very important for a realistic assessment of the radiative impact of arctic ice clouds. The differences in radiative broadband fluxes predicted by the four different particle models were found to be caused mainly by differences in the optical depth and the asymmetry parameter. These two parameters were found to have nearly the same impact on the predicted cloud forcing. Computations were performed first by assuming a given vertical profile of the particle number density, then by assuming a given profile of the IWC. In both cases, the differences between the cloud radiative forcings computed with the four different non-spherical particle models were found to be of comparable magnitude. This finding shows that precise knowledge of ice particle number density or particle mass is not sufficient for accurate prediction of ice cloud radiative forcing. It is equally important to employ a non-spherical shape model that accurately reproduces the ice particle's dimension-to-volume ratio and its asymmetry parameter. The hexagonal column/plate model with air-bubble inclusions seems to offer the highest degree of flexibility.     

Preliminary results of a non-spherical aerosol method for the retrieval of the atmospheric aerosol optical properties

There is experimental evidence that the non-sphericity of certain atmospheric particles can cause scattering properties different from those predicted by standard Mie theory. Numerous studies indicate the need to consider the presence of non-spherical particles in modeling the optical properties of atmospheric aerosols. On the other hand, natural aerosols show a great variety of shapes, making difficult a realistic choice of a particle shape (or shape mixture) model. In this paper, we test a parameterization of the particle shape in the retrieval of size distribution, phase function, single scattering albedo and asymmetry parameter from direct and sky-radiance measurements. For this purpose we have substituted the Kernel based on the Mie theory included in the model SKYRAD.PACK by one derived for non-spherical particles. The method is applied under different atmospheric conditions, including Saharan dust outbreak, polluted and local mineral episodes. We compare the results with those obtained by the well known spheroids algorithm used in the AERONET network.     

大气气溶胶粒子光吸收系数的测量

 采用核孔过滤膜累积气溶胶粒子的方法设计了气溶胶粒子光吸收系数的测量系统。该系统由双光路组成,可以减小光路损耗和电路噪声带来的各种测量误差。同时，具有体积小、光路易于调节、可进行实时测量、定标容易等特点。用200和400nm孔径的过滤膜，分别测量了实验室内大气气溶胶粒子对不同波长激光的吸收系数。随着累积时间的增加，系统的测量精度也不断的提高，在累积时间为900s时，系统测量误差为9.849×10^-6/m。     

A study of the radiative forcing and global warming potentials of hydrofluorocarbons

We developed a new radiation parameterization of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), using the correlated k-distribution method and the high-resolution transmission molecular absorption (HITRAN) 2004 database. We examined the instantaneous and stratospheric adjusted radiative efficiencies of HFCs for clear-sky and all-sky conditions. We also calculated the radiative forcing of HFCs from preindustrial times to the present and for future scenarios given by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES, in short). Global warming potential and global temperature potential were then examined and compared on the basis of the calculated radiative efficiencies. Finally, we discuss surface temperature changes due to various HFC emissions.     

On the use of principal component analysis to speed up radiative transfer calculations

Radiative transfer is computationally expensive. However, it is essential to many applications, in particular remote sensing retrievals. Principal component analysis of the optical depth and single scattering albedo profiles has been proposed as a possible method to help ease the computational burden. Here we show how the technique could be applied to a practical problem of CO₂ retrievals from high spectral resolution measurements of reflected sunlight in three near infrared bands. We obtain a speed improvement of more than 50 fold (compared to monochromatic computations), while reproducing the radiances to better than 0.1% accuracy.     

A direct method for the integration of the equation of radiative transfer in a turbid atmosphere

In this paper we apply a numerical method on the equation of radiative transfer in a turbid atmosphere. The solution is obtained by means of direct integration of the equation of radiative transfer without any circuitous series development.     

Toward characterization of the aerosol optical properties over Loess Plateau of Northwestern China

Aerosol optical properties were obtained from a CIMEL sunphotometer of the Aerosol Robotic Network at the Semi-Arid Climate and Environment Observatory of Lanzhou University (SACOL). SACOL is located over the Loess Plateau of the Northwestern China. The observed data are analyzed for the period of August 2006-October 2008. We find that aerosol optical depths (AODs) have a pronounced annual cycle, with a maximum dust aerosol loading during the spring. The 2-year average values of AOD, Ångström exponent (α), and water vapor path (WVP) along with their standard deviation (in parenthesis) are 0.35 (0.21), 0.93 (0.34), and 0.77 cm (0.52 cm), respectively. The probability distributions of these quantities all have one modal value, which are 0.3, 1.1, and 0.5 cm, respectively. There is a notable feature in the relationship between daily averaged AOD and Ångström exponent: a wide range of α corresponding to moderate to low aerosol optical depths (<0.8). There is no significant correlation between daily averaged WVP and AOD. However the daily averaged Ångström exponent and WVP show a significant positive correlation, indicating that the smaller aerosol particles present when the WVP is large. Variations of the retrieved aerosol volume size distributions are mainly associated with the changes in the concentration of the coarse aerosol fraction. The geometric mean radii for the fine and coarse aerosols are 0.18 μm (±0.03 μm), and 2.53 μm (±0.25 μm), respectively. The spectral dependences of the single scattering albedos are different between the dusty and non-dusty conditions. In the presence of dust, the SSAs increase slightly with wavelength. When dust is not a major component, the corresponding values decrease with wavelength.     

A quasi-analytic solution of the radiative transfer equation for three-dimensional atmospheres

In this study, we present a new solution of the three-dimensional (3-D) radiation transfer equation (RTE). The solution employs a discretization technique to separate the independent variables involved in the 3-D RTE, and the doubling-adding method to solve the RTE explicitly and quasi-analytically. The remarkable feature of the present solution is the application of scaling-function expansion to those terms that are dependent on horizontal coordinates. Scaling-function expansion is suitable for representing irregular horizontal inhomogeneities with small-scale variations. By applying scaling-function expansion, the 3-D RTE can be formulated in the form of a vector-matrix differential equation; matrices involved in the equation are generally sparse and dominantly diagonal matrices, and this considerably reduces the labor involved in matrix calculations. We tested the performance of the present solution via radiative transfer calculations of solar radiation in horizontally inhomogeneous two-dimensional cloud models. The calculated results indicate that even if the resolution of the scaling-function expansion is too coarse in regions around small-scale variations, the influence does not spread problematically to other regions far from the variations; this illustrates the advantage of the scaling-function expansion. The present solution can be used to investigate quantitatively and to estimate the effects of cloud spatial inhomogeneity on the corresponding radiation field.     

地基消光测量确定大气气溶胶模型

分别取大陆型、海洋型、城市型和Junge谱分布气溶胶模型,用6S辐射传输算法计算出对应于太阳光度计测量时的各波段大气气溶胶光学厚度。将模式计算值与测量值进行比较,确定测量地区的大气气溶胶模型。将该方法用于2004年在北京地区测量的太阳光度计数据,结果显示该地区当日实际大气在几种气溶胶模型中较为符合城市型气溶胶模型。     

Inverse problem for particle size distributions of atmospheric aerosols using stochastic particle swarm optimization

As a part of resolving optical properties in atmosphere radiative transfer calculations, this paper focuses on obtaining aerosol optical thicknesses (AOTs) in the visible and near infrared wave band through indirect method by gleaning the values of aerosol particle size distribution parameters. Although various inverse techniques have been applied to obtain values for these parameters, we choose a stochastic particle swarm optimization (SPSO) algorithm to perform an inverse calculation. Computational performances of different inverse methods are investigated and the influence of swarm size on the inverse problem of computation particles is examined. Next, computational efficiencies of various particle size distributions and the influences of the measured errors on computational accuracy are compared. Finally, we recover particle size distributions for atmospheric aerosols over Beijing using the measured AOT data (at wavelengths λ=0.400, 0.690, 0.870, and 1.020 μm) obtained from AERONET at different times and then calculate other AOT values for this band based on the inverse results. With calculations agreeing with measured data, the SPSO algorithm shows good practicability.     

The spatial polarization distribution over the dome of the sky for abnormal irradiance of the atmosphere

The paper deals with the polarized radiative transfer within a slab irradiated by a collimated infinitely wide beam of arbitrary polarized light. The efficiency of the proposed analytical solution lies in the assumption that the complete vectorial radiative transfer solution is the superposition of the most anisotropic and smooth parts, computed separately. The vectorial small-angle modification of the spherical harmonics method is used to evaluate the anisotropic part, and the vectorial discrete ordinates method is used to obtain the smooth one. The azimuthal expansion is used in order to describe the light field spatial distribution for the case of abnormal irradiance and to obtain some known neutral points in the sky especially useful for polarized remote sensing of the atmosphere.