Aerosol extinction hygroscopic growth characteristics obtained

In order to study the extinction hygroscopic growth characteristics of aerosol in coastal areas, a recent study analyzed the local aerosol characteristics of Qingdao, a typical coastal city in China.

This research was conducted by a research team led by Prof. ZHU Wenyue from Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). They published the related results in the Remote Sensing.

The extinction capacity of marine aerosols is strongly influenced by the atmospheric relative humidity (RH). Coastal areas are mixed areas of marine and terrestrial aerosols, because of the complex local aerosol types and the drastic changes of environmental RH. Computational accuracy of atmospheric radiative transfer model in coastal regions requires accurate aerosol hygroscopic growth models.

In this study, researchers used aerosol backward trajectory tracing model to classify the local aerosol type.

"We took advantage of the long-term field campaign data in Qingdao from 2019 to 2020," said Associate Prof. CUI Xiangsheng, member of the team, "the aerosol hygroscopic growth (HG) characteristics of different types of aerosols like land source, sea source, and mixed aerosol under different seasons were studied, and different atmospheric environments including pollution background and clean background were analyzed."

They established quantitative models of aerosol HG factor for aerosols from various sources in different seasons and under diverse pollution background conditions.

This study would help to improve the current tracing models, according to the team. These models can be directly used to characterize the hygroscopic characteristics of atmospheric aerosols in Qingdao at specific seasons or pollution levels for radiative transfer modeling, remote sensing, etc.

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