Variation of Aerosol Optical Properties over Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Based on 10 Years of AERONET Data and MODIS MAIAC AOD Product

• Published in: Remote Sensing
• Main Authors: Horațiu Ioan Ștefănie, Andrei Radovici, Alexandru Mereuță, Viorel Arghiuș, Horia Cămărășan, Dan Costin, Camelia Botezan, Camelia Gînscă, Nicolae Ajtai
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2023
• Subjects: aerosols; AERONET; Cluj-Napoca; climatology; MAIAC; AOD; Science; Q; Aerosol Robotic Network
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15123072; https://doaj.org/article/ca3bb47a15bf4050ab79f297a65d373f

Aerosols play an important role in Earth’s climate system, and thus long-time ground- based measurements of aerosol optical properties are useful in understanding this role. Ten years of quality-assured measurements between 2010 and 2020 are used to investigate the aerosol climatology in the Cluj-Napoca area, in North-Western Romania. In this study, we analyze the aerosol optical depth (AOD), single scattering albedo (SSA) and angstrom exponent obtained by the CIMEL sun photometer, part of the aerosol robotic network (AERONET), to extract the seasonality of aerosols in the region and investigate the aerosol climatology of the area. Higher aerosol loads are found during July and August. The angstrom exponent has the lowest values in April and May, and the highest in August. The classification of aerosols using AERONET data is performed to separate dust, biomass burning, polluted urban, marine and continental-dominant aerosol mixtures. In addition, the study presents the validation efforts of the Multi-Angle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC) dataset against AERONET AOD over a 10-year period.