Oleg Dubovik talks with
ScienceWatch.com and answers a few questions about
this month's Emerging Research Front in the field of
Geosciences. The author has also sent along images of their
work.
Article: Variability of absorption and optical
properties of key aerosol types observed in worldwide
locations
Authors:
Dubovik,
O;Holben, B;Eck, TF;Smirnov, A;Kaufman,
YJ;King, MD;Tanre, D;Slutsker, I
Journal: J ATMOS SCI, 59 (3): 590-608 2002
Figure 1: The averaged optical properties
of different types of tropospheric aerosol
(urban/industrial, biomass burning, desert
dust and oceanic aerosol) retrieved from
the worldwide AERONET network of
ground-based radiometers in several key
world-wide locations. The upper panel shows
single scattering albedo (ratio of total
scattering to total scattering + total
absorption) and the lower panel shows the
corresponding size distributions of the
aerosol in total atmospheric column. In
average, the aerosol tends to heat the
atmosphere if single scattering albedo is
less then 0.9 and to heat the atmosphere
the single scattering albedo is larger then
0.9..