Linking surface in-situ measurements to columnar aerosol optical properties at Hyytiälä, Finland

Abstract:

Ambient optical properties of aerosols strongly depend on the particles' hygroscopicity and the relative humidity (RH) of the surrounding air. The key parameter to describe the influence of RH on the particle light scattering is the scattering enhancement factor f(RH), which is defined as the particle light scattering coefficient at defined RH divided by its dry value. Knowledge of this hygroscopicity effect is of crucial importance for climate forcing calculations and is needed for the comparison or validation of remote sensing with in-situ measurements.

We will present results of an intensive field campaign carried out in summer 2013 at the SMEAR II station in Hyytiälä, Finland, which was part of the EU-FP7 project PEGASOS (Pan-European Gas-Aerosols-climate interaction Study). Ground-based and airborne measurements of aerosol optical, chemical and microphysical properties were conducted. The f(RH) measured at ground by a humidified nephelometer was found to be significantly lower (1.53 ± 0.24 at RH=85% and wavelength λ=450 nm) than observed at other European sites (Zieger et al., 2013). One reason is the high organic mass fraction of the boreal aerosol as measured by an aerosol chemical speciation monitor (ACSM). A closure study using Mie theory showed the consistency of the ground based in-situ measurements.

Our measurements allowed to determine the ambient particle light extinction coefficient. Together with intensive aircraft measurements (lasting one month) of the particle number size distribution and ambient humidity, different columnar values were determined and compared to direct measurements and inversions of the AERONET Sun photometer (e.g., the columnar aerosol volume size distribution). The aerosol optical depth strongly correlated (R²≈0.9 for λ=440 nm to R²≈0.6 for λ=1020 nm) with the in situ derived values, but was significantly lower compared to the direct measurements of the Sun photometer (slope ≈0.5). This was explained by the loss of coarse mode particles within the in-situ measurements and by elevated aerosol layers (>3 km) from long-range transport layers that were observed using an aerosol LIDAR at Kuopio, Finland, about 210 km east of Hyytiälä.

Zieger, P., Fierz-Schmidhauser, R., Weingartner, E. and Baltensperger, U. (2013). Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13,10609-10631.