Suchergebnisse

This study evaluates the potential of using aerosol optical depth (τa) measurements to characterize the microphysical and optical properties of atmospheric aerosols. With this aim, we used the recently developed GRASP (Generalized Retrieval of Aerosol and Surface Properties) code for numerical testing of six different aerosol models with three different aerosol loads. We found that bimodal log-normal size distributions serve as useful input assumptions, especially when the measurements have inadequate spectral coverage and/or limited accuracy, such as lunar photometry. The direct numerical simulations indicate that the GRASP-AOD retrieval provides modal aerosol optical depths (fine and coarse) to within 0.01 of the input values. The retrieval of the fine mode radius, width, and volume concentration is stable and precise if the real part of the refractive index is known (.) ; The research has been supported by the Labex CaPPA: the CaPPA project (Chemical and Physical Properties of the Atmosphere) is funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR) through the PIA (Programme d'Investissement d'Avenir) under contract "ANR-11-LABX-0005-01" and by the Regional Council "Nord Pas de Calais - Picardie" and the European Funds for Regional Economic Development (FEDER). This research has also received funding from the French National Research Agency (ANR) project ADRIMED (contract ANR-11-BS56- 0006). The authors acknowledge the funding provided by the European Union (H2020-INFRAIA-2014-2015) under Grant Agreement No. 654109 (ACTRIS-2). Financial support was also provided by MINECO (CTM2015-66742-R).