and

Quantification of the aerosol direct effect and climate sensitivity requires accurate estimates of optical properties as inputs to a radiative transfer model. Long-term measurements of aerosol properties at the Southern Great Plains (SGP) site can be used as an improvement over a best guess or global average for optical properties (e.g., asymmetry factor of 0.7) used in Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) products such as the Broadband Heating Rate Profile Value-Added Product (VAP). To make this information available to the ARM community and others, an add-on module for a commonly used radiative transfer model, the Santa Barbara DISORT Atmospheric Radiative Transfer (SBDART) (Ricchiazzi et al. 1998), is being developed. A look up table and algorithm will provide aerosol related model inputs including aerosol optical and atmospheric state properties at high temporal resolution. These inputs can be used in conjunction with any mode of operation and with any other information, for example, cloud properties, in SBDART or any other radiative transfer model. Aerosol properties measured at three visible wavelengths are extrapolated so that flux calculations can be made in any desired wavelength across the shortwave spectrum. Several sources of uncertainty contribute to degraded accuracy of the aerosol property estimation. The effect of these uncertainties is shown throug