T HE CHALLENGE. Aerosol particles inf luence climate by modifying both the global energy balance through absorption and scattering of radiation (direct effects), and the reflectance and persistence of clouds and the development and occurrence of precipitation (indirect effects); the term “aerosol” denotes a stable, sparse suspension of microscopical or submicroscopical solid and/or liquid parti...

We use measurements and models to develop aerosol models for use in the inversion algorithms for the Cloud Aerosol Lidar and Imager Pathfinder Spaceborne Observations (CALIPSO). Radiance measurements and inversions of the AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET ) are used to group global atmospheric aerosols using optical and microphysical parameters. This study uses more than 10 records of radiance m...

Discussions This discussion paper is/has been under review for the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP). Please refer to the corresponding final paper in ACP if available. Abstract Smoke aerosols from biomass burning are an important component of the global aerosol cycle. Analysis of Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) retrievals of size distribution and refractive index reveals variet...

43 The new level 3 aerosol profile data derived from the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and 44 Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) provide multi-year global 45 aerosol distribution with high vertical resolution. We analyzed seasonal and diurnal 46 variations of the vertical distributions of aerosol properties represented by this 47 CALIPSO data for the period of five years. Results show t...

Aerosol radiative forcing is a critical, though variable and uncertain component of the global climate. Yet climate models rely on sparse information of the aerosol optical properties. In situ measurements, though important in many respects, seldom provide measurements of the undisturbed aerosol in the entire atmospheric column. Here we use 8 years of worldwide distributed data from the AERONET...

Studying optical properties of atmospheric aerosol is important because aerosol affects people around the world significantly. Aerosol can directly affect climate change by scattering and absorption of solar and other radiations, and also indirectly affect the radiation by affecting cloud formation. Tropospheric aerosol is associated with air pollution and adverse health effects. These effects ...

[1] Using multiple satellite instruments, we demonstrate a new empirical method for obtaining shortwave (SW) aerosol angular distribution models (ADMs) over cloud-free oceans. We use nearly a year’s worth of multispectral Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data to obtain aerosol properties within a Clouds and Earth Radiant Energy System (CERES) footprint and Special Sensor Mi...

Evaluation of the forcing of climate by aerosol scattering of shortwave radiation in cloud-free conditions (direct aerosol forcing) requires knowledge of aerosol optical properties on relevant spatial and temporal scales. It is convenient to measure these properties at the surface. However, before these measurements can be used to quantitatively estimate direct climate forcing, it is necessary ...

Since about 30 % of the land surface are covered with arid and desert conditions of soil, bright grounds and their aerosol emissions are of essential importance for the investigation of general aerosol impact in climate. Therefore retrievals of aerosol properties from spaceborne platforms need to include retrieval approaches, working over this conditions. An approach to retrieve aerosol propert...

[1] As more information about global aerosol properties has become available from remotely sensed retrievals and in situ measurements, it is prudent to evaluate this new information, both on its own and in the context of satellite retrieval algorithms. Using the climatology of almucantur retrievals from global Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) Sun photometer sites, we perform cluster analysis t...