Heavy aerosol loading over the Bohai Bay as revealed by ground and satellite remote sensing

Abstract

Abstract Heavy aerosol loading over the Bohai Bay, the innermost gulf of the Yellow Sea, was often recorded by the satellite observations. In order to understand aerosol optical properties and potential causes for the high aerosol loading there, a Cimel sunphotometer station (BH) was established on an offshore platform over the Bay for the first time in June 2012. The aerosol optical properties between July 2012 and July 2013 were employed to validate the satellite retrievals and to characterize temporal variability of aerosol optical properties. In particular, aerosol optical properties at BH were compared with those at Beijing (BJ), an urban station of the North China Plain (NCP), to discuss their potential difference during the same months of the same years. Mean aerosol optical depth at 550 nm (AOD) retrieved from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) measurements over the Bohai Bay was 0.79 ± 0.68 during 2004–2013, that even exceeded value over the NCP (0.50 ± 0.57). This fact was supported by the comparison of ground-based remote sensing AODs at BH and BJ. The annual mean Cimel AOD at BH was 0.76 ± 0.62, which was larger than that at BJ (0.64 ± 0.52). The MODIS AOD difference between the Bohai Bay and the NCP was 0.29, being more than two times larger than the Cimel AOD difference between BH and BJ (0.12). This strongly implied that the MODIS retrievals had significant biases over the Bohai Bay that was likely due to sediment in the water and also sea ice in winter. A distinct seasonal variation of AOD was revealed over ocean. The maxima Cimel AOD was observed in summer (1.02 ± 0.75), which was followed by spring (0.86 ± 0.61), autumn (0.54 ± 0.41), and winter (0.39 ± 0.24); this was in good agreement with that over the NCP. High AOD over the Bohai Bay was associated with the heavy exhaust emissions from the ships across the Bay and transport of aerosols from the NCP. Furthermore, a much strong hygroscopic growth of fine mode aerosols over the Sea as a result of humid environment also should contributed to high AOD. This was supported by the observation that the effective radius and fraction of fine mode increased with AOD at the Bay, more importantly, the increasing rate was always larger than that at the NCP. The knowledge of the detailed variations of aerosol optical properties over the polluted ocean region would help to improve satellite aerosol retrieval and to promote our understanding on regional climate change research.