Field calibration of multi-scattering correction factor for aethalometer aerosol absorption coefficient during CAPMEX Campaign, 2008

Abstract:

Filter-based instrument, such as aethalometer, is being widely used to measure equivalent black carbon(EBC) mass concentration and aerosol absorption coefficient(AAC). However, many other previous studies have poited that AAC and its aerosol absorption angstrom exponent(AAE) are strongly affected by the multi-scattering correction factor(C) when we retrieve AAC from aethalometer EBC mass concentration measurement(Weingartner et al., 2003; Arnott et al., 2005; Schmid et al., 2006; Coen et al., 2010). We determined the C value using the method given in Weingartner et al. (2003) by comparing 7-wavelngth aethalometer (AE-31, Magee sci.) to 3-wavelength Photo-Acoustic Soot Spectrometer (PASS-3, DMT) at Gosan climate observatory, Korea(GCO) during Cheju ABC plume-asian monsoon experiment(CAPMEX) campaign(August and September, 2008). In this study, C was estimated to be 4.04 ± 1.68 at 532 nm and AAC retrieved with this value was decreased as approximately 100% as than that retrieved with soot case value from Weingartner et al (2003). We compared the AAC determined from aethalomter measurements to that from collocated Continuous Light Absorption Photometer (CLAP) measurements from January 2012 to December 2013 at GCO and found good agreement in both AAC and AAE. This result suggests the determination of site-specific C is crucially needed when we calculate AAC from aethalometer measurements.