A global analysis of climate-relevant aerosol properties retrieved from the network of Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) near-surface observatories

• Published in: Atmospheric Measurement Techniques
• Main Authors: Perez, Noemi, Alastuey, Andrés, Titos, Gloria, Yus-Díez, Jesús
• Other Authors: European Commission
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: Arctic; albedo; black carbon; Climate change
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10261/230914; https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-4353-2020

Aerosol particles are essential constituents of the Earth's atmosphere, impacting the earth radiation balance directly by scattering and absorbing solar radiation, and indirectly by acting as cloud condensation nuclei. In contrast to most greenhouse gases, aerosol particles have short atmospheric residence times, resulting in a highly heterogeneous distribution in space and time. There is a clear need to document this variability at regional scale through observations involving, in particular, the in situ near-surface segment of the atmospheric observation system. This paper will provide the widest effort so far to document variability of climate-relevant in situ aerosol properties (namely wavelength dependent particle light scattering and absorption coefficients, particle number concentration and particle number size distribution) from all sites connected to the Global Atmosphere Watch network. High-quality data from almost 90 stations worldwide have been collected and controlled for quality and are reported for a reference year in 2017, providing a very extended and robust view of the variability of these variables worldwide. The range of variability observed worldwide for light scattering and absorption coefficients, single-scattering albedo, and particle number concentration are presented together with preliminary information on their long-term trends and comparison with model simulation for the different stations. The scope of the present paper is also to provide the necessary suite of information, including data provision procedures, quality control and analysis, data policy, and usage of the ground-based aerosol measurement network. It delivers to users of the World Data Centre on Aerosol, the required confidence in data products in the form of a fully characterized value chain, including uncertainty estimation and requirements for contributing to the global climate monitoring system. This research was supported by the European Commission's Horizon 2020 Framework Programme (ACTRIS-2 (grant agreement no. 654109)); AEMET; European ERDF funds through different Spanish R&D projects of the Spanish Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad; the North-West University; the University of Helsinki; the Finnish Meteorological Institute; the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence programme (project no. 272041); the Academy of Finland project Greenhouse gas, aerosol and albedo variations in the changing Arctic (project no. 269095); the Novel Assessment of Black Carbon in the Eurasian Arctic: From Historical Concentrations and Sources to Future Climate Impacts (NABCEA, project no. 296302); the Korea Meteorological Administration Research and Development Program “Development of Monitoring and Analysis Techniques for Atmospheric Composition in Korea” (grant no. KMA2018-00522); the National Research Foundation of Korea (grant no. 2017R1D1A1B06032548); the Korea Meteorological Administration Research and Development Program (grant no. KMI2018-01111); the Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration; CNRS-INSU; French Ministry for Research under the ACTRIS-FR national research infrastructure; French Ministry of the Environment; US Environmental Protection Agency; MeteoSwiss (GAW-CH aerosol monitoring programme); the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI); Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of CR within National Sustainability Program I (NPU I, grant no. LO1415); ERDF “ACTRIS-CZ RI” (grant no. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_013/0001315); CRISOL (CGL2017-85344-R MINECO/AEI/FEDER, UE); TIGAS-CM (Madrid Regional Government Y2018/EMT-5177); AIRTEC-CM (Madrid Regional Government P2018/EMT4329); REDMAAS2020 (RED2018-102594-T CIENCIA); the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness; FEDER funds (project HOUSE, grant no. CGL2016-78594-R); the Generalitat de Catalunya (AGAUR 2017 SGR41 and the DGQA); the National Institute for Aerospace Technology; the Ministerio Español de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO); NOAA/ESRL/GMD; PANhellenic infrastructure for Atmospheric Composition and climate change (MIS 5021516); Research and Innovation Infrastructure; Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation (grant no. NSRF 2014-2020); the Italian Ministry of Research and Education; the Norwegian Environment Agency; Swedish FORMAS; Swedish Research Council (VR); the Magnus Bergvall foundation; the Märta och Erik Holmberg foundation; and the Swedish EPA.