Assessment of dust size retrievals based on AERONET: A case study of radiative closure from visible-near-infrared to thermal infrared

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Dust_AERONET_closure_v14_clean.pdf (1.06 MB)
 supporting_information_v4.pdf (545.29 KB)

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https://essopenarchive.org/doi/full/10.22541/essoar.170355039.95598312

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https://doi.org/10.22541/essoar.170355039.95598312/v1
 http://hdl.handle.net/11603/31372

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UMBC Physics Department
UMBC Faculty Collection
UMBC GESTAR II
UMBC Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET)
UMBC Student Collection

Author/Creator

Author/Creator ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3886-7913
 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9491-1654
 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1991-5054

Date

2023-12-26

Type of Work

journal articles
preprints
Text

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Citation of Original Publication

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This item is likely protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Unless on a Creative Commons license, for uses protected by Copyright Law, contact the copyright holder or the author.

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Abstract

Super-coarse dust particles (diameters > 10 µm) are evidenced to be more abundant in the atmosphere than model estimates and contribute significantly to the dust climate impacts. Since super-coarse dust accounts for less dust extinction in the visible-to-near-infrared (VIS-NIR) than in the thermal infrared (TIR) spectral regime, they are suspected to be underestimated by remote sensing instruments operates only in VIS-NIR, including Aerosol Robotic Networks (AERONET), a widely used dataset for dust model validation. In this study, we perform a radiative closure assessment using the AERONET-retrieved size distribution in comparison with the collocated Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) TIR observations with comprehensive uncertainty analysis. The consistently warm bias in the comparisons suggests a potential underestimation of supercoarse dust in the AERONET retrievals due to the limited VIS-NIR sensitivity. An extra super coarse mode included in the AERONET-retrieved size distribution helps improve the TIR closure without deteriorating the retrieval accuracy in the VIS-NIR.