Relationship between Land Use and Spatial Variability of Atmospheric Brown Carbon and Black Carbon Aerosols in Amazonia ...

• Main Authors: Morais, Fernando G., Franco, Marco A., Palácios, Rafael, Machado, Luiz A. T., Rizzo, Luciana V., Barbosa, H. M. J., Jorge, Fabio, Schafer, Joel S., Holben, Brent N., Landulfo, Eduardo, Artaxo, Paulo
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI 2022
• Subjects: Alta; Rio Branco; Aerosol Robotic Network
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.13016/m2ocru-vdir; https://mdsoar.org/handle/11603/26113

The aerosol radiative effect is an important source of uncertainty in estimating the anthropogenic impact of global climate change. One of the main open questions is the role of radiation absorption by aerosols and its relation to land use worldwide, particularly in the Amazon Rainforest. Using AERONET (Aerosol Robotic Network) long-term measurements of aerosol optical depth (AOD) at a wavelength of 500 nm and absorption AOD (AAOD) at wavelengths of 440, 675, and 870 nm, we estimated the fraction and seasonality of the black carbon (BC) and brown carbon (BrC) contributions to absorption at 440 nm. This was conducted at six Amazonian sites, from central Amazon (Manaus and the Amazon Tall Tower Observatory—ATTO) to the deforestation arc (Rio Branco, Cuiabá, Ji-Paraná, and Alta Floresta). In addition, land use and cover data from the MapBiomas collection 6.0 was used to access the land transformation from forest to agricultural areas on each site. The results showed, for the first time, important geographical ...