Absorption and scattering of light by soot aggregates with uniform and pendular ring coatings

Abstract

The magnitude of radiative forcing by soot is strongly dependent on its morphology and mixing state, which continuously evolve during atmospheric aging. One of the major soot aging mechanisms is via interaction with condensable trace-gas chemicals, and our previous study has shown the formation of two distinct coating distributions on fractal soot aggregates, primarily depending on the radius of monomer spheres and supersaturation of the condensing vapor. The two coating distributions, spherical shells around monomers and pendular rings in junctions between monomers, differ profoundly in their ability to restructure soot aggregates. Here, we investigate the impact of these two distributions on the optical properties of soot, using Discrete Dipole Approximation (DDA) calculations, which are also compared against the Rayleigh Debye Gans (RDG) approximation and the core-shell model. For most optical parameters, the difference between the two coating distributions was minor, except for the asymmetry parameter, where it was significant (5–13%). We found that the placement of condensate in junctions significantly depressed the asymmetry parameter for most coating volumes, thus promoting isotropic scattering by soot. Compared to a uniform condensate distribution, the presence of coating between monomers always resulted in slightly larger absorption, scattering and single scattering albedo (SSA), with the difference reaching ~10% for scattering at high coating volumes. We found that the RDG approximation underestimated absorption, but was able to predict scattering to within ~3%. On the other hand, the core-shell model significantly overestimated absorption, scattering, and SSA, especially for thinly coated soot.