Sponsor
The TRAMP participants, DBA, SDB, and BL would like to express their gratitude to the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC) for supporting and funding Project H78 and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for supporting and funding this research under grant 582-5-64594. DBA acknowledges support from the Atmospheric Composition and Climate program at the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration through award number NA05OAR4310108.
Published In
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-2010
Subjects
Air quality -- Texas -- Gulf Coast, Air quality, Air -- Pollution -- Measurement
Abstract
During the 2006 Texas Air Quality Study and Gulf of Mexico Atmospheric Composition and Climate Study (TexAQS-GoMACCS 2006), the optical, chemical and microphysical properties of atmospheric aerosols were measured on multiple mobile platforms and at ground based stations. In situ measurements of the aerosol light extinction coefficient (σep) were performed by two multi-wavelength cavity ring-down (CRD) instruments, one located on board the NOAA R/V Ronald H. Brown (RHB) and the other located at the University of Houston, Moody Tower (UHMT). An AERONET sunphotometer was also located at the UHMT to measure the columnar aerosol optical depth (AOD). The σep data were used to extract the extinction Ångstrӧm exponent (åep), a measure of the wavelength dependence of σep. There was general agreement between the åep (and to a lesser degree
σep) measurements by the two spatially separated CRD instruments during multi-day periods, suggesting a regional scale consistency of the sampled aerosols. Two spectral models are applied to the σep and AOD data to extract the fine mode fraction of extinction (ᵑ) and the fine mode effective radius (Reff,f). These two parameters are robust measures of the fine mode contribution to total extinction and the fine mode size distribution, respectively. The results of the analysis are compared to Reff,f values extracted using AERONET V2 retrievals and calculated from in situ particle size measurements on the RHB and at UHMT. During a time period when fine mode aerosols dominated the extinction over a large area extending from Houston/Galveston Bay and out into the Gulf of Mexico, the various methods for obtaining Reff,f agree qualitatively (showing the same temporal trend) and quantitatively (pooled standard deviation = 28 nm).
DOI
10.5194/acp-10-51-2010
Persistent Identifier
http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/15121
Citation Details
Atkinson, D. B., Massoli, P., O'Neill, N. T., Quinn, P. K., Brooks, S. D., and Lefer, B.: Comparison of in situ and columnar aerosol spectral measurements during TexAQS-GoMACCS 2006: testing parameterizations for estimating aerosol fine mode properties, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 10, 51-61, doi:10.5194/acp-10-51-2010, 2010.
Included in
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Description
© Author(s) 2010. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
This article is available online at: www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/51/2010/