[1] The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is one of the most prominent patterns of atmospheric circulation variability over the Northern hemisphere, yet little is known about its underlying mechanism of phase conversion. Our analysis reveals that the recent decline of Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) over the Subtropical Atlantic Ocean (SAO) contributes significantly to the enhancement of SAO Sea Sur...

The challenge for instrument manufacturers is to continuously improve and evolve their instrumentation to keep pace with scientific research. One field where this is evident is atmospheric aerosol research. The variety in aerosol size, shape, chemical composition, and their ability to change properties under varying atmospheric conditions creates many challenges in quantifying their impact on t...

As a potential offsetting agent to the greenhouse effect, aerosols are receiving increasing attention in the atmospheric science community. Notwithstanding, our knowledge of the impact of aerosols on radiation and climate is rather poor and falls well behind that of the greenhouse effect (IPCC 1995). Direct radiative forcing (DRF) of aerosols is an important climatic parameter measuring the inf...

The wavelength-dependent aerosol extinction in the 800-1250-cm(-1) region has been derived from ATMOS (atmospheric trace molecule spectroscopy) high-spectral-resolution IR transmission measurements. Using models of aerosol and cloud extinction, we have performed weighted nonlinear least-squares fitting to determine the aerosol-volume columns and vertical profiles of stratospheric sulfate aeroso...

Application of the variability-size relationship to atmospheric aerosol studies: estimating aerosol lifetimes and ages J. Williams, M. de Reus, R. Krejci, H. Fischer, and J. Ström Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany Institute of Applied Environmental Research (ITM), Stockholm University, Sweden Received: 12 October 2001 – Accepted: 14 November 2001 – Published: 18 January 2002 Co...

In the introduction to the Technical Note, ‘‘Instantaneous secondary organic aerosol yields and their comparison with overall aerosol yields for aromatic and biogenic hydrocarbons’’, Jiang (2003) states that ‘‘[t]o model the formation of secondary organic aerosol, SOA, a concept called aerosol yield (or SOA yield), loosely defined as the SOA mass formed per unit mass of reactive organic gas (RO...

Aerosol particles are ubiquitous in the troposphere and exert an important influence on global climate and the environment. They affect climate through scattering, transmission, and absorption of radiation as well as by acting as nuclei for cloud formation. A significant fraction of the aerosol particle burden consists of minerals, and most of the remainder- whether natural or anthropogenic-con...

Lidars are active optical remote sensing instruments with unique capabilities for atmospheric sounding. A manifold of atmospheric variables can be profiled using different types of lidar: concentration of species, wind speed, temperature, etc. Among them, measurement of the properties of aerosol particles, whose influence in many atmospheric processes is important but is still poorly stated, st...

Ternary homogeneous nucleation (THN) of H2SO4, NH3 and H2O has been used to explain new particle formation in various atmospheric regions, yet laboratory measurements of THN have failed to reproduce atmospheric observations. Here, we report first laboratory observations of THN made under conditions relevant to the lower troposphere ([H2SO4] of 106–107 cm−3, [NH3] of 0.08–20 ppbv, and a temperat...

The overall objective of this investigation is to develop algorithms, based on the unique properties of the MODIS sensor, for remote sensing of aerosol and cloud characteristics, and remote sensing of water vapor. The derived aerosol, cloud and water vapor properties will be used to develop aerosol climatology, to perform atmospheric corrections of the MODIS imagery in the solar region, as well...