Airborne observations during KORUS-AQ show that aerosol optical depths are more spatially self-consistent than aerosol intensive properties

LeBlanc, S., M. Segal-Rozenhaimer, J. Redemann, C.J. Flynn, R.R. Johnson, S. Dunagan, R.P. Dahlgren, J. Kim, M. Choi, A.M. da Silva, P. Castellanos, Q. Tan, L.D. Ziemba, K.L. Thornhill, and M.S. Kacenelenbogen (2022), Airborne observations during KORUS-AQ show that aerosol optical depths are more spatially self-consistent than aerosol intensive properties, Atmos. Chem. Phys., doi:10.5194/acp-22-11275-2022.
Abstract

Aerosol particles can be emitted, transported, removed, or transformed, leading to aerosol variability at scales impacting the climate (days to years and over hundreds of kilometers) or the air quality (hours to days and from meters to hundreds of kilometers). We present the temporal and spatial scales of changes in AOD (aerosol optical depth) and aerosol size (using Ångström exponent – AE; fine-mode fraction – FMF) over Korea during the 2016 KORUS-AQ (KORea–US Air Quality) atmospheric experiment. We use measurements and retrievals of aerosol optical properties from airborne instruments for remote sensing (4STAR; Spectrometers for Sky-Scanning Sun-Tracking Atmospheric Research) and in situ (LARGE; NASA Langley Aerosol Research Group Experiment) on board the NASA DC-8 and geostationary satellites (GOCI; Geostationary Ocean Color Imager; Yonsei aerosol retrieval – YAER, version 2) as well as from reanalysis (MERRA-2; Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, version 2). Measurements from 4STAR when flying below 1000 m show an average AOD at 501 nm of 0.36 and an average AE of 1.11 with large standard deviation (0.12 and 0.15 for AOD and AE, respectively), likely due to mixing of different aerosol types (fine and coarse mode). The majority of AOD due to fine-mode aerosol is observed at altitudes lower than 2 km. Even though there are large variations, for 18 out of the 20 flight days, the column AOD measurements by 4STAR along the NASA DC8 flight trajectories match the South Korean regional average derived from GOCI. GOCI-derived FMF, which was found to be slightly low compared to AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) sites (Choi et al., 2018), is lower than 4STAR’s observations during KORUS-AQ.

PDF of Publication
Download from publisher's website
Research Program
Atmospheric Composition
Tropospheric Composition Program (TCP)
Mission
KORUS-AQ