In affiliation with

• Main Author: Robert S. Stone
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antarctic; Antarc*; Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.516.9140; http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/Porano9EXTabs.pdf

Atmospheric aerosols affect the Earth's radiation budget through interactions with solar and terrestrial radiation. Various committees involved with assessing global climate change recognize that aerosols can significantly impact the earth’s radiation balance. In particular, the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research has recommended the establishment of an international network of solar spectrophotometers to monitor aerosol optical depth (AOD) at high latitudes. Although such a network now exists, better coordination is needed in order to provide research quality data to the scientific community. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory (CMDL) is collaborating with other institutes to assimilate AOD data from all polar observatories into a central archive for analysis. Historically, in situ aerosol data have been collected at CMDL baseline