Climatology of aerosol radiative properties over East Asia in spring

Abstract—The knowledge of aerosol properties on a regional scale is important in understanding of the global climate change and radiation forcing. In order to understand aerosol radiative properties in East Asia, 8-year measurements were conducted during 2001-2008. In this study, the aerosol radiative properties over East Asia in spring have been presented from the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) measurements. The average single scattering albedo (ω) showed a wild increasing trend with wavelengths for Dunhuang sites and a low sensitivity to wavelengths for others sites. The ω varied in the range of 0.925-0.975 at Dunhuang, 0.885-0.916 at Beijing and Seoul, and 0.912-0.944 at Gosan, Osaka and Noto at 440, 675, 870 and 1020 nm. The averages of asymmetry factor (ɡ) were found to be larger at Dunhuang compared to other five sites. The increase of asymmetry factor was possibly attributed to the higher contribution of large particle, and indicated the particles over dust source regions were predominant in forward scattering. The averages of ɡ at the four wavelengths were 0.72 in Dunhuang, 0.67 in Gosan and Noto, and 0.66 in three urban sites (Beijing, Seoul and Osaka). Keywords—aerosol; dust; radiative propertiy; East Asi