Modeling Optical Properties of Polluted Dust and its Morphological Effects by T-Matrix Method

Abstract:

Dust storms largely contribute to regional or global aerosol loads, influence radiative energy budget, and air quality, and cause atmospheric environmental, public health problems. As dusts are transported long distances, aerosols such as black carbon can pollute the air mass along the transport path. Two mixing processes, externally and semi-externally (sticking) mixing may substantially affect the single-scattering and radiative properties of polluted dust particles compared to the unpolluted counterparts. This study focuses on quantifying the changes in the optical properties of dust aerosols due to black carbon contamination. The dust model we use is an irregular polyhedron, which is in good agreement with the laboratory measurement. The black carbon model is spherules aggregate defined with a cluster-cluster aggregation algorithm. Specifically, we define the degree of pollution in terms of two variables, the adhesion degree of pollutants and their mixing ratios, since both can alter the optical properties of polluted dust in different ways. By applying the Invariant Imbedding T-matrix Method (II-TM), we obtain the scattering phase matrix and other optical properties of dust aerosols with different degrees of contamination. Furthermore, the morphological effects on the optical properties of polluted dust are quantified by considering different fractal dimensions of black carbon as particles age. The overall changes due to different degrees of pollution by black carbon are investigated at various wavelengths.