Assessment of Dust Size Retrievals Based on AERONET: A Case Study of Radiative Closure From Visible-Near-Infrared to Thermal Infrared

Super-coarse dust particles (diameters >10 μm) are evidenced to be more abundant in the atmosphere than model estimates and contribute significantly to the dust climate impacts. Since super-coarse dust accounts for less dust extinction in the visible-to-near-infrared (VIS-NIR) than in the thermal...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical research letters 2024-02, Vol.51 (4), p.n/a
Main Authors: Zheng, Jianyu, Zhang, Zhibo, DeSouza-Machado, Sergio, Ryder, Claire L, Garnier, Anne, Biagio, Claudia Di, Yang, Ping, Welton, Ellsworth J, Yu, Hongbin, Barreto, Africa, Gonzalez, Margarita Y
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
aeronet
Atmosphere
Atmospheric Infrared Sounder
Atmospheric models
Atmospheric particulates
Climate
Climate models
coarse mode
Dust
Dust particles
Dust plumes
Environmental Sciences
Extinction
Geosciences (General)
Infrared analysis
Infrared signatures
Near infrared radiation
Optical properties
Radiation
Remote sensing
Remote sensing techniques
Sensing techniques
Size distribution
Uncertainty analysis
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Summary:Super-coarse dust particles (diameters >10 μm) are evidenced to be more abundant in the atmosphere than model estimates and contribute significantly to the dust climate impacts. Since super-coarse dust accounts for less dust extinction in the visible-to-near-infrared (VIS-NIR) than in the thermal infrared (TIR) spectral regime, they are suspected to be underestimated by remote sensing instruments operates only in VIS-NIR, including Aerosol Robotic Networks (AERONET), a widely used data set for dust model validation. In this study, we perform a radiative closure assessment using the AERONET-retrieved size distribution in comparison with the collocated Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) TIR observations with comprehensive uncertainty analysis. The consistently warm bias in the comparisons suggests a potential underestimation of super-coarse dust in the AERONET retrievals due to the limited VIS-NIR sensitivity. An extra super-coarse mode included in the AERONET-retrieved size distribution helps improve the TIR closure without deteriorating the retrieval accuracy in the VIS-NIR.
ISSN:0094-8276
1944-8007
DOI:10.1029/2023GL106808