TY - JOUR
T1 - Evaluation of a relationship between aerosols and surface downward shortwave flux through an integrative analysis of modeling and observation
AU - Goto, Daisuke
AU - Kanazawa, Shuhei
AU - Nakajima, Teruyuki
AU - Takemura, Toshihiko
N1 - Funding Information:
Some of the authors were supported by projects from JAXA/EarthCARE, MEXT/VL for Climate System Diagnostics, the MOE/Global Environment Research Fund A-1011, NIES/GOSAT, MEXT/RECCA/SALSA, and NIES/CGER (NEC SX-8R). We are thankful to the relevant researchers and staff members for the AERONET sites, BSRN sites, NCAR/NCEP reanalysis data, HadISST data, and emission data by the AeroCom project and to the SPRINTARS and Rstar developers. X. Dong, E. Oikawa, B. J. Sohn, and S.-S. Kim are also thanked for discussing this study.
PY - 2012/3
Y1 - 2012/3
N2 - Although aerosols have great impacts on Surface Downward Shortwave Flux (SDSF), the relationship between aerosol loading and SDSF in global models has not yet been adequately investigated. In this study, we attempt to investigate the effects of aerosol optical thickness (AOT) and single scattering albedo (SSA) on SDSF through an integrative analysis of modeling and observation. At first, we compared the results obtained by a global aerosol model, SPRINTARS, with in-situ measurements, AERONET and BSRN. And then we estimated the impacts of AOT and SSA on SDSF through an offline radiative transfer model, Rstar. Through this study, we found that the difference in SDSF between SPRINTARS and BSRN is much larger over heavy aerosol regions than those over regions. Using the Rstar radiative transfer model, we demonstrated that the AOT difference usually has the strongest impact on the SDSF difference and the SSA difference has a moderate impact over heavy aerosol loading regions, whereas the effect of water vapor can be ignored. Finally, we generated a contour plot to demonstrate the relationships between AOT-SSA-SDSF. For example, at low AOT (e.g., 0.15), the 20Wm -2 changes in SDSF are required to make more than 0.2 changes of SSA, whereas at high AOT (e.g., 0.85), the same changes in SDSF are required to have only 0.05 changes of SSA.
AB - Although aerosols have great impacts on Surface Downward Shortwave Flux (SDSF), the relationship between aerosol loading and SDSF in global models has not yet been adequately investigated. In this study, we attempt to investigate the effects of aerosol optical thickness (AOT) and single scattering albedo (SSA) on SDSF through an integrative analysis of modeling and observation. At first, we compared the results obtained by a global aerosol model, SPRINTARS, with in-situ measurements, AERONET and BSRN. And then we estimated the impacts of AOT and SSA on SDSF through an offline radiative transfer model, Rstar. Through this study, we found that the difference in SDSF between SPRINTARS and BSRN is much larger over heavy aerosol regions than those over regions. Using the Rstar radiative transfer model, we demonstrated that the AOT difference usually has the strongest impact on the SDSF difference and the SSA difference has a moderate impact over heavy aerosol loading regions, whereas the effect of water vapor can be ignored. Finally, we generated a contour plot to demonstrate the relationships between AOT-SSA-SDSF. For example, at low AOT (e.g., 0.15), the 20Wm -2 changes in SDSF are required to make more than 0.2 changes of SSA, whereas at high AOT (e.g., 0.85), the same changes in SDSF are required to have only 0.05 changes of SSA.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2011.11.032
DO - 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2011.11.032
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84856532414
VL - 49
SP - 294
EP - 301
JO - Atmospheric Environment
JF - Atmospheric Environment
SN - 1352-2310
ER -