Aerosol Absorption in the Atmosphere: Perspectives from Global Model, Ground-Based Measurements, and Field Observations

Aerosol absorption in the atmosphere poses a major uncertainty in assessing the aerosol climate effects. This uncertainty arises from the poorly quantified aerosol sources, especially black carbon emissions, and our limited knowledge of aerosol mixing state and optical properties. Here we use a global model GOCART to simulate atmospheric aerosols, including sulfate, black carbon, organic carbon, dust, and sea salt. We compare the model calculated total aerosol optical thickness, extinction, and absorption with those quantities from the ground-based sun photometer measurements from AERONET at several different wavelengths and the field observations from ACE-Asia. We will examine what are the most sensitive factors in determining the aerosol absorption, and the consequences of assessing the aerosol radiative forcing and atmospheric heating associated with those factors.