Seasonally varying reference atmospheres for East Asia

Abstract

Vertical profiles of seasonally varying pressure, temperature, water vapor, and trace gases (O3, N2O, CO, CH4), representing atmospheric conditions up to a height of 100 km over the East Asia region (30°–50°N, 110°–150°E) were constructed by using various observation data, model outputs of atmospheric thermodynamic parameters, and gaseous concentrations. Optical characteristics of the obtained East Asia reference atmospheres were compared with those from typical midlatitude summer and winter atmospheres. It was noted that, in the water vapor field, there are major differences between the two model atmospheres during the summer. The resultant impact during the summer of water vapor difference on incoming solar fluxes at the surface and emitted terrestrial fluxes at the top of the atmosphere are 14.3 W m−2 and 6.5 W m−2, respectively. On the other hand, the winter difference between East Asian and midlatitude atmospheres appears to be insignificant. Reference atmospheres for the spring and fall are also available. Utilizing the constructed atmospheric profiles as inputs to the radiative transfer model, it is expected that the constructed seasonally varying reference atmospheres can facilitate better descriptions of optical properties in East Asia.