Study of aerosol radiative properties under different relative humidity conditions in the thermal infrared region

Abstract:

In the aerosol transport process, the optical properties of aerosol particles can vary due to humidification or mixing with other kinds of aerosols. Previous studies have shown mixing dust with other types of aerosol tends to make the aerosol more spectrally absorptive, but the degree of impact of relative humidity (RH) along the transport path is not clear. To investigate this effect, we conduct a numerical study to estimate the radiative sensitivity of aerosols under various relative humidity conditions. Specifically, the OPAC (Optical Properties of Aerosols and Clouds) database is used, which provides the optical properties (i.e., the extinction, scattering and absorption coefficient, single-scattering albedo, asymmetry factor and phase function) of ten types of aerosols under various relative humidity conditions. Lookup tables (LUTs) of the bidirectional reflectivity, transmissivity and effective emissivity will be computed for the ten aerosol types for input to the high-spectral-resolution radiative transfer model (HRTM). Using these LUTs, the HTRM can calculate top-of-atmospheric brightness temperatures, which we can use to determine the degree of radiative sensitivity in the infrared spectral region. Furthermore, comparisons between simulations and MODIS observations will be presented.