Absorbing Aerosol Layers Research Articles

Accounting for Unresolved Clouds in a 1D Infrared Radiative Transfer Model. Part I: Solution for Radiative Transfer, Including Cloud Scattering and Overlap

Abstract Various aspects of infrared radiative transfer through clouds are investigated. First, three solutions to the IR radiative transfer equation are presented and assessed, each corresponding to a different approximation for the Planck function. It is shown that the differences in results between solutions with linear and exponential dependence of the Planck source function are small for typical vertical resolutions in climate models. Second, a new perturbation-based approach to solving the IR radiative transfer equation with the inclusion of cloud scattering is presented. This scheme follows the standard perturbation method, and allows one to identify the zeroth-order equation with the absorption approximation and the first-order equation as including IR scattering effects. This enables one solution to accurately treat cloudy layers in which cloud scattering is included, and allows for an improved and consistent treatment of absorbing aerosol layers in the absence of cloud by using the zeroth-order ...

The Prognostic Implication of Further Renal Function Deterioration Within 48 Hours of Interventional Procedures in Patients With Pre-Existing Chronic Renal Insufficiency. Gruberg L, Mintz GS, Mehran R, et al. J Am Coll Cardiol 2000;36:1542–8

We estimate the aerosol direct radiative forcing (ADRF) and heating rate profiles of mixed East Asian dust plumes in the solar wavelength region ranging from 0.25 to 4.0 μm using the Santa Barbara Discrete Ordinate Atmospheric Radiative Transfer (SBDART) code. Vertical profiles of aerosol extinction coefficients and single-scattering albedos (SSA) were derived from measurements with a multi-wavelength Raman lidar system. The data are used as input parameters for our radiative transfer calculations. We considered four cases of radiative forcing in SBDART: 1. dust, 2. pollution, 3. mixed dust plume and the use of vertical profiles of SSA, and 4. mixed dust plumes and the use of column-averaged values of SSA. In our sensitivity study we examined the influence of SSA and aerosol layer height on our results. The ADRF at the surface and in the atmosphere shows a small dependence on the specific shape of the aerosol extinction vertical profile and its light-absorption property for all four cases. In contrast, at the top of the atmosphere (TOA), the ADRF is largely affected by the vertical distribution of the aerosols extinction. This effect increases if the light-absorption capacity (decrease of SSA) of the aerosols increases. We find different radiative effects in situations in which two layers of aerosols had different light-absorption properties. The largest difference was observed at the TOA for an absorbing aerosol layer at high altitude in which we considered in one case the vertical profile of SSA and in another case the column-averaged SSA only. The ADRF at the TOA increases when the light-absorbing aerosol layer is located above 3 km altitude. The differences between height-resolved SSA, which can be obtained from lidar data, and total layer-mean SSA indicates that the use of a layer-mean SSA can be rather misleading as it can induce a large error in the calculation of the ADRF at the TOA, which in turn may cause errors in the vertical profiles of heating rates.

Effect of clouds on direct aerosol radiative forcing of climate

The effect of a cloud layer on top‐of‐atmosphere (TOA) aerosol radiative forcing is examined by means of a one‐dimensional vertical column simulation. To span the range between nonabsorbing and strongly absorbing particles, (NH4)2SO4 and soot aerosols are considered individually and in internal and external mixtures. For a cloud layer embedded within an aerosol layer it is shown that direct aerosol radiative forcing still occurs. For a nonabsorbing aerosol a maximum in (negative) forcing actually occurs for a thin cloud layer (100 m thickness for the set of parameters considered). The presence of an embedded cloud layer enhances the heating effect of soot aerosol, producing, for thick clouds, forcing values as much as a factor of 3 over those under cloud‐free conditions. An absorbing aerosol layer can lead to an increase of in‐cloud solar heating rates by up to 3% for the parameter values considered here. A cirrus cloud layer above an aerosol layer leads to only modest changes of TOA aerosol forcing from those in the absence of the cloud layer; thus aerosol forcing in the presence of typical cirrus clouds cannot be neglected.

Effect of clouds on direct aerosol radiative forcing of climate

The effect of a cloud layer on top-of-atmosphere (TOA) aerosol radiative forcing is examined by means of a one-dimensional vertical column simulation. To span the range between nonabsorbing and strongly absorbing particles, (NH_4)_2SO_4 and soot aerosols are considered individually and in internal and external mixtures. For a cloud layer embedded within an aerosol layer it is shown that direct aerosol radiative forcing still occurs. For a nonabsorbing aerosol a maximum in (negative) forcing actually occurs for a thin cloud layer (100 m thickness for the set of parameters considered). The presence of an embedded cloud layer enhances the heating effect of soot aerosol, producing, for thick clouds, forcing values as much as a factor of 3 over those under cloud-free conditions. An absorbing aerosol layer can lead to an increase of in-cloud solar heating rates by up to 3% for the parameter values considered here. A cirrus cloud layer above an aerosol layer leads to only modest changes of TOA aerosol forcing from those in the absence of the cloud layer; thus aerosol forcing in the presence of typical cirrus clouds cannot be neglected.