scholarly journals Consistency of dimensional distributions and refractive indices of desert dust measured over Lampedusa with IASI radiances

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 599-615 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuliano Liuzzi ◽  
Guido Masiello ◽  
Carmine Serio ◽  
Daniela Meloni ◽  
Claudia Di Biagio ◽  
...  

Abstract. In the context of the ChArMEx campaign, we present here some results concerning the quantitative comparison between simulated and observed radiances in the presence of atmospheric desert dust, between June and July 2013 in the southern Mediterranean Basin, in the air mass above the island of Lampedusa. In particular, comparisons have been performed between radiances as observed by the Infrared Atmospheric Sounder Interferometer (IASI) and those simulated using the σ-IASI-as radiative transfer model, which takes into account aerosol extinction effect through a set of fast parameterizations. Simulations have been carried out using different sets of input complex refractive indices, which take into account the parent soils of the aerosols. Their accuracy also relies on the quality of the characterization of desert dust microphysical properties, achieved through direct measurements in the ChArMEx experiment. On the one hand, the fact that the model can ingest such a variable input proves its feasibility. On the other hand, this work goes through a direct validation of different refractive index sets for desert dust in the thermal infrared, and pursues an assessment of the sensitivity of IASI data with respect to the dimensional distribution of desert dust particles. Results show a good consistency between calculations and observations, especially in the spectral interval 800–1000 cm−1; further, the comparison between calculations and observations suggests that further efforts are needed to better characterize desert dust optical properties in the shortwave (above 2000 cm−1). Whatever the case, we show that it is necessary to properly tune the refractive indices according to the geographical origin of the observed aerosol.

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuliano Liuzzi ◽  
Guido Masiello ◽  
Carmine Serio ◽  
Daniela Meloni ◽  
Claudia Di Biagio ◽  
...  

Abstract. In the context of the ChArMEx campaign, we present here some results concerning the quantitative comparison between simulated and observed radiances during a dust event occurred between June and July 2013 in the southern Mediterranean basin, involving the airmass above Lampedusa island. In particular, comparisons have been performed between radiances as observed by the Infrared Atmospheric Sounder Interferometer (IASI) and those simulated using the σ-IASI-as radiative transfer model, which takes into account aerosol extinction effect through a set of fast parameterizations. Simulations have been carried on with different sets of input complex refractive indices, which take into account the parent soils of the aerosols, and using the high-quality characterization of desert dust aerosol microphysical properties, achieved through direct measurements in the ChArMEx experiment; on the one hand, this comparison has offered the possibility to test the feasibility of the radiative transfer model. On the other hand, this work goes through a direct validation of different refractive indices sets for desert dust in the thermal infrared. Results show a good consistency between calculations and observations, especially in the spectral interval 800–1000 cm−1; moreover, the comparison between calculations and observations suggests that further efforts are needed to better characterize desert dust optical properties in the short wave (above 2000 cm−1). In any case, we show that it is necessary to properly tune the refractive indices according to the geographical origin of the observed aerosol.


2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 5489-5504 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Spyrou ◽  
G. Kallos ◽  
C. Mitsakou ◽  
P. Athanasiadis ◽  
C. Kalogeri ◽  
...  

Abstract. Mineral dust aerosols exert a significant effect on both solar and terrestrial radiation. By absorbing and scattering, the solar radiation aerosols reduce the amount of energy reaching the surface. In addition, aerosols enhance the greenhouse effect by absorbing and emitting outgoing longwave radiation. Desert dust forcing exhibits large regional and temporal variability due to its short lifetime and diverse optical properties, further complicating the quantification of the direct radiative effect (DRE). The complexity of the links and feedbacks of dust on radiative transfer indicate the need for an integrated approach in order to examine these impacts. In order to examine these feedbacks, the SKIRON limited area model has been upgraded to include the RRTMG (Rapid Radiative Transfer Model – GCM) radiative transfer model that takes into consideration the aerosol radiative effects. It was run for a 6 year period. Two sets of simulations were performed, one without the effects of dust and the other including the radiative feedback. The results were first evaluated using aerosol optical depth data to examine the capabilities of the system in describing the desert dust cycle. Then the aerosol feedback on radiative transfer was quantified and the links between dust and radiation were studied. The study has revealed a strong interaction between dust particles and solar and terrestrial radiation, with several implications on the energy budget of the atmosphere. A profound effect is the increased absorption (in the shortwave and longwave) in the lower troposphere and the induced modification of the atmospheric temperature profile. These feedbacks depend strongly on the spatial distribution of dust and have more profound effects where the number of particles is greater, such as near their source.


2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1327-1365 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Spyrou ◽  
G. Kallos ◽  
C. Mitsakou ◽  
P. Athanasiadis ◽  
C. Kalogeri ◽  
...  

Abstract. Mineral dust aerosols exert a significant effect on both solar and terrestrial radiation. By absorbing and scattering the solar radiation aerosols reduce the amount of energy reaching the surface. In addition, aerosols enhance the greenhouse effect by absorbing and emitting outgoing longwave radiation. Desert dust forcing exhibits large regional and temporal variability due to its short lifetime and diverse optical properties, further complicating the quantification of the Direct Radiative Effect (DRE). The complexity of the links and feedbacks of dust on radiative transfer indicate the need of an integrated approach in order to examine these impacts. In order to examine these feedbacks, the SKIRON limited area model has been upgraded to include the RRTMG (Rapid Radiative Transfer Model – GCM) radiative transfer model that takes into consideration the aerosol radiative effects. It was run for a 6 yr period. Two sets of simulations were performed, one without the effects of dust and the other including the radiative feedback. The results were first evaluated using aerosol optical depth data to examine the capabilities of the system in describing the desert dust cycle. Then the aerosol feedback on radiative transfer has been quantified and the links between dust and radiation have been studied. The study has revealed a strong interaction between dust particles and solar and terrestrial radiation, with several implications on the energy budget of the atmosphere. A profound effect is the increased absorption (in the shortwave and longwave) in the lower troposphere and the induced modification of the atmospheric temperature profile. These feedbacks depend strongly on the spatial distribution of dust and have more profound effects where the number of particles is greater, such as near their source.


2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 7097-7114 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Zhang ◽  
Q. B. Li ◽  
Y. Gu ◽  
K. N. Liou ◽  
B. Meland

Abstract. Atmospheric mineral dust particles exert significant direct radiative forcings and are important drivers of climate and climate change. We used the GEOS-Chem global three-dimensional chemical transport model (CTM) coupled with the Fu-Liou-Gu (FLG) radiative transfer model (RTM) to investigate the dust radiative forcing and heating rate based on different vertical profiles for April 2006. We attempt to actually quantify the sensitivities of radiative forcing to dust vertical profiles, especially the discrepancies between using realistic and climatological vertical profiles. In these calculations, dust emissions were constrained by observations of aerosol optical depth (AOD). The coupled calculations utilizing a more realistic dust vertical profile simulated by GEOS-Chem minimize the physical inconsistencies between 3-D CTM aerosol fields and the RTM. The use of GEOS-Chem simulated vertical profile of dust extinction, as opposed to the FLG prescribed vertical profile, leads to greater and more spatially heterogeneous changes in the estimated radiative forcing and heating rate produced by dust. Both changes can be attributed to a different vertical structure between dust and non-dust source regions. Values of the dust vertically resolved AOD per grid level (VRAOD) are much larger in the middle troposphere, though smaller at the surface when the GEOS-Chem simulated vertical profile is used, which leads to a much stronger heating rate in the middle troposphere. Compared to the FLG vertical profile, the use of GEOS-Chem vertical profile reduces the solar radiative forcing at the top of atmosphere (TOA) by approximately 0.2–0.25 W m−2 over the African and Asian dust source regions. While the Infrared (IR) radiative forcing decreases 0.2 W m−2 over African dust belt, it increases 0.06 W m−2 over the Asian dust belt when the GEOS-Chem vertical profile is used. Differences in the solar radiative forcing at the surface between the use of the GEOS-Chem and FLG vertical profiles are most significant over the Gobi desert with a value of about 1.1 W m−2. The radiative forcing effect of dust particles is more pronounced at the surface over the Sahara and Gobi deserts by using FLG vertical profile, while it is less significant over the downwind area of Eastern Asia.


2005 ◽  
Vol 44 (10) ◽  
pp. 1526-1543 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Li ◽  
Hung-Lung Huang ◽  
Chian-Yi Liu ◽  
Ping Yang ◽  
Timothy J. Schmit ◽  
...  

Abstract The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) measurements from the NASA Earth Observing System Aqua satellite enable global monitoring of the distribution of clouds during day and night. The MODIS is able to provide a high-spatial-resolution (1–5 km) cloud mask, cloud classification mask, cloud-phase mask, cloud-top pressure (CTP), and effective cloud amount during both the daytime and the nighttime, as well as cloud particle size (CPS) and cloud optical thickness (COT) at 0.55 μm during the daytime. The AIRS high-spectral-resolution measurements reveal cloud properties with coarser spatial resolution (13.5 km at nadir). Combined, MODIS and AIRS provide cloud microphysical properties during both the daytime and nighttime. A fast cloudy radiative transfer model for AIRS that accounts for cloud scattering and absorption is described in this paper. One-dimensional variational (1DVAR) and minimum-residual (MR) methods are used to retrieve the CPS and COT from AIRS longwave window region (790–970 cm−1 or 10.31–12.66 μm, and 1050–1130 cm−1 or 8.85–9.52 μm) cloudy radiance measurements. In both 1DVAR and MR procedures, the CTP is derived from the AIRS radiances of carbon dioxide channels while the cloud-phase information is derived from the collocated MODIS 1-km phase mask for AIRS CPS and COT retrievals. In addition, the collocated 1-km MODIS cloud mask refines the AIRS cloud detection in both 1DVAR and MR procedures. The atmospheric temperature profile, moisture profile, and surface skin temperature used in the AIRS cloud retrieval processing are from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts forecast analysis. The results from 1DVAR are compared with the operational MODIS products and MR cloud microphysical property retrieval. A Hurricane Isabel case study shows that 1DVAR retrievals have a high correlation with either the operational MODIS cloud products or MR cloud property retrievals. 1DVAR provides an efficient way for cloud microphysical property retrieval during the daytime, and MR provides the cloud microphysical property retrievals during both the daytime and nighttime.


2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (13) ◽  
pp. 7449-7456 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Wandji Nyamsi ◽  
A. Arola ◽  
P. Blanc ◽  
A. V. Lindfors ◽  
V. Cesnulyte ◽  
...  

Abstract. The k-distribution method and the correlated-k approximation of Kato et al. (1999) is a computationally efficient approach originally designed for calculations of the broadband solar radiation at ground level by dividing the solar spectrum in 32 specific spectral bands from 240 to 4606 nm. Compared to a spectrally resolved computation, its performance in the UV band appears to be inaccurate, especially in the spectral intervals #3 [283, 307] nm and #4 [307, 328] nm because of inaccuracy in modeling the transmissivity due to ozone absorption. Numerical simulations presented in this paper indicate that a single effective ozone cross section is insufficient to accurately represent the transmissivity over each spectral interval. A novel parameterization of the transmissivity using more quadrature points yields maximum errors of respectively 0.0006 and 0.0143 for intervals #3 and #4. How to practically implement this new parameterization in a radiative transfer model is discussed for the case of libRadtran (library for radiative transfer). The new parameterization considerably improves the accuracy of the retrieval of irradiances in UV bands.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad R. Sadrian ◽  
Wendy M. Calvin ◽  
John McCormack

Abstract. Mineral dust particles dominate aerosol mass in the atmosphere and directly modify Earth’s radiative balance through absorption and scattering. This radiative forcing varies strongly with mineral composition, yet there is still limited knowledge on the mineralogy of atmospheric dust. In this study, we performed X-ray diffraction (XRD) and reflectance spectroscopy measurements on 37 different atmospheric dust samples collected as airfall in an urban setting to determine mineralogy and the relative proportions of minerals in the dust mixture. Most commonly, XRD has been used to characterize dust mineralogy; however, without prior special sample preparation, this technique is less effective for identifying poorly crystalline or amorphous phases. In addition to XRD measurements, we performed visible, near-infrared, and short-wave infrared (VNIR/SWIR) reflectance spectroscopy for these natural dust samples as a complementary technique to determine minerology and mineral abundances. Reflectance spectra of dust particles are a function of a nonlinear combination of mineral abundances in the mixture. Therefore, we used a Hapke radiative transfer model along with a linear spectral mixing approach to derive relative mineral abundances from reflectance spectroscopy. We compared spectrally derived abundances with those determined semi-quantitatively from XRD. Our results demonstrate that total clay mineral abundances from XRD are correlated with those from reflectance spectroscopy and follow similar trends; however, XRD underpredicts the total amount of clay for many of the samples. On the other hand, calcite abundances are significantly underpredicted by SWIR compared to XRD. This is caused by the weakening of absorption features associated with the fine particle size of the samples, as well as the presence of dark non-mineral materials (e.g., asphalt) in these samples. Another possible explanation for abundance discrepancies between XRD and SWIR is related to the differing sensitivity of the two techniques (crystal structure vs chemical bonds). Our results indicate that it is beneficial to use both XRD and reflectance spectroscopy to characterize airfall dust, because the former technique is good at identifying and quantifying the SWIR-transparent minerals (e.g., quartz, albite, and microcline), while the latter technique is superior for determining abundances for clays and non-mineral components.


2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 2415-2456 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Zhang ◽  
Q. B. Li ◽  
Y. Gu ◽  
K. N. Liou ◽  
B. Meland

Abstract. Atmospheric mineral dust particles exert significant direct radiative forcings and are critical drivers of climate change. Here, we use the GEOS-Chem global three-dimensional chemical transport model (3-D CTM) coupled online with the Fu-Liou-Gu (FLG) radiative transfer model (RTM) to investigate the dust radiative forcing and heating rates based on different dust vertical profiles. The coupled calculations using a realistic dust vertical profile simulated by GEOS-Chem minimize the physical inconsistencies between 3-D CTM aerosol fields and the RTM. The use of GEOS-Chem simulated aerosol optical depth (AOD) vertical profiles as opposed to the FLG prescribed AOD vertical profiles leads to greater and more spatially heterogeneous changes in estimated radiative forcing and heating rate produced by dust. Both changes can be attributed to a different vertical structure between dust and non-dust source regions. Values of the dust AOD are much larger in the middle troposphere, though smaller at the surface when the GEOS-Chem simulated AOD vertical profile is used, which leads to a much stronger heating rate in the middle troposphere. Compared to FLG vertical profile, the use of GEOS-Chem vertical profile reduces the solar radiative forcing effect by about 0.2–0.25 W m−2 and the Infrared (IR) radiative forcing over the African and Asia dust source regions by about 0.1–0.2 W m−2. Differences in the solar radiative forcing at the surface between using the GEOS-Chem vertical profile and the FLG vertical profile are most significant over the Gobi desert with a value of about 1.1 W m−2. The radiative forcing effect of dust particles is more pronounced at the surface over the Sahara and Gobi deserts by using FLG vertical profile, while it is less significant over the downwind area of Eastern Asia.


2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 1027-1040
Author(s):  
W. Wandji Nyamsi ◽  
A. Arola ◽  
P. Blanc ◽  
A. V. Lindfors ◽  
V. Cesnulyte ◽  
...  

Abstract. The k-distribution method and the correlated-k approximation of Kato et al. (1999) is a computationally efficient approach originally designed for calculations of the broadband solar radiation at ground level by dividing the solar spectrum in 32 specific spectral bands from 240 to 4606 nm. Compared to a spectrally-resolved computation, its performance in the UV band appears to be inaccurate, especially in the spectral intervals #3 [283, 307] nm and #4 [307, 328] nm because of inaccuracy in modelling the transmissivity due to ozone absorption. Numerical simulations presented in this paper indicate that a single effective ozone cross section is insufficient to accurately represent the transmissivity over each spectral interval. A novel parameterization of the transmissivity using more quadrature points yields maximum error of respectively 0.0006 and 0.0041 for interval #3 and #4. How to practically implement this new parameterization in a radiative transfer model is discussed for the case of libRadtran.


2011 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 789-804 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. K. Srivastava ◽  
S. Tiwari ◽  
P. C. S. Devara ◽  
D. S. Bisht ◽  
Manoj K. Srivastava ◽  
...  

Abstract. Sun/sky radiometer observations over the Indo-Gangetic Basin (IGB) region during pre-monsoon (from April–June 2009) have been processed to analyze various aerosol characteristics in the central and eastern IGB region, represented by Kanpur and Gandhi College, respectively, and their impacts on climate in terms of radiative forcing. Monthly mean aerosol optical depth (AOD at 500 nm) and corresponding Angstrom Exponent (AE at 440–870 nm, given within the brackets) was observed to be about 0.50 (0.49) and 0.51 (0.65) in April, 0.65 (0.74) and 0.67 (0.91) in May and 0.69 (0.45) and 0.77 (0.71) in June at Kanpur and Gandhi College, respectively. Results show a positive gradient in AOD and AE from central to eastern IGB region with the advancement of the pre-monsoon, which may be caused due to diverse geographical location of the stations having different meteorological conditions and emission sources. Relatively lower SSA was observed at the eastern IGB (0.89) than the central IGB (0.92) region during the period, which suggests relative dominance of absorbing aerosols at the eastern IGB as compared to central IGB region. The absorbing aerosol optical properties over the station suggest that the atmospheric absorption over central IGB region is mainly due to dominance of coarse-mode dust particles; however, absorption over eastern IGB region is mainly due to dominance of fine-particle pollution. The derived properties from sun/sky radiometer during pre-monsoon period are used in a radiative-transfer model to estimate aerosol radiative forcing at the top-of-the atmosphere (TOA) and at the surface over the IGB region. Relatively large TOA and surface cooling was observed at the eastern IGB as compared to the central IGB region. This translates into large heating of the atmosphere ranging from 0.45 to 0.55 K day−1 at Kanpur and from 0.45 to 0.59 K day−1 at Gandhi College.


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