Comparisons of aerosol optical depth and surface shortwave irradiance and their effect on the aerosol surface radiative forcing estimation

Abstract

Column aerosol optical depth (AOD) and surface shortwave irradiance (SSI) measurements relevant to computation of the aerosol surface radiative forcing (ΔF) and forcing efficiency (β) were taken as part of Aerosol Characterization Experiment‐Asia (ACE‐Asia) at the Gosan surface site in Korea in April 2001. We compare the AOD and SSI derived from three different types of Sun photometers and three sets of radiometers. We also estimate the ΔF and β using two methods and quantify the observational uncertainties of these parameters. A comparison of the AOD at 500 nm shows that the three Sun photometers generally agreed within 0.014 (mean), 0.0142 (bias), and 0.0298 (root mean square) for coincident observations. Over the course of the comparison, the mean differences between the SSI measurements were 1.6, 11.7, and 10.1 Wm−2 for direct, diffuse and global irradiances, respectively. However, for both the AOD and the SSI comparisons, relatively high instantaneous differences between the instruments were apparent on days with heavy dust at the surface. The mean β and associated deviations, which were estimated by the combinations of different instrument‐derived AODs and SSIs, for simultaneous observation data at a 60° solar zenith angle are −79.50 ± 3.92 and −82.57 ± 5.70 Wm−2/τ500 for globalshaded (sum of direct and diffuse irradiances) and globalunshaded (measured by the unshaded pyranometer) irradiances, respectively. The uncertainties in β associated with uncertainties in the AOD and SSI (in parentheses) for globalshaded and globalunshaded irradiance are about 8.6% and 3.2% (10.7%), respectively. A 2% difference between the measured global irradiances for a given 9 days was translated into an uncertainty of 19% in ΔF. This difference in ΔF between instruments caused a 14% deviation in β.