Steps Toward an Aerosol-Type Global Climate Data Record

Abstract:

Earth-observing satellites have produced a global record of aerosol optical depth approaching two decades in length. However a global record of aerosol properties at the level-of-detail required for constraining aerosol radiative forcing, aerosol-cloud interaction assessments, and many air quality applications is as yet lacking. Some aerosol-type information is derived from surface-based photometers, and qualitative classification is possible under favorable conditions from MISR, POLDER, and CALIPSO. More detailed particle microphysical properties are obtained from in situ measurements, but sampling is poor, and the suite of coincident measurements required for many applications is rarely acquired. Aerosol transport models can connect remote-sensing and in situ observations to specific aerosol sources, and extrapolate limited observational sampling in space and time. The biggest challenges to producing a global aerosol-type data record are filling gaps in detailed observations, maintaining global observing capabilities, and putting the pieces together.

Obtaining detailed particle properties is probably the leading observational gap. One simplifying factor is that, for a given aerosol source and season, aerosol amounts can vary, but the particle properties tend to be repeatable. So an aircraft payload designed and deployed frequently enough to acquire the PDFs of the key variables could fill this gap; the SAM-CAAM (Systematic Aircraft Measurements to Characterize Aerosol Air Masses) concept aims at meeting this objective. Such data would add value to the entire satellite data record, improving the aerosol property assumptions in retrievals, and providing quantitative mass extinction efficiencies to translate between remote-sensing optical constraints and the aerosol mass book-kept in climate models. This will also help putting the pieces together in other ways, by improving the connection between remote-sensing particle types and those defined in models. The enhanced connections will encourage including model aerosol-type into the overall data record where observing conditions preclude satellite retrievals. The third major challenge, maintaining global observing capabilities, requires continued hard work by the community, and good budgetary fortune.