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Atmosphere
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Atmospheric Aerosol Regional Monitoring
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Atmospheric Aerosol Regional Monitoring

A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Aerosols".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2019) | Viewed by 21451

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Gloria Titos

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Applied Physics, Atmospheric Physics Group, University of Granada, Avda. Fuentenueva, 18071 Granada, Spain
Interests: atmospheric aerosols; aerosol–cloud interactions; aerosol physical and optical properties; aerosol chemical composition; aerosol hygroscopicity; radiative forcing; aerosol in situ techniques
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Alberto Cazorla

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Atmospheric Physics Group, Department of Applied Physics, University of Granada, Avda. del Hospicio, 18071 Granada, Spain
Interests: atmospheric aerosols; aerosol-cloud interactions; aerosol characterization; bioaerosol; aerosol remote sensing and in-situ techniques

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Aerosols play an important role in the radiative balance of the Earth climate system. The direct aerosol effects depend on the aerosol optical properties and their spatial and vertical distribution in the atmosphere. In spite of the recent advances in instrumentation that have improved the characterization of key aerosol properties and increased the spatial resolution, aerosol-associated uncertainties are still considered to be a major factor in climate forcing. Additionally, understanding the physicochemical characteristics of atmospheric aerosol particles in a range of atmospheric environments (from urban to regional) is crucial for understanding and constraining the climatic impacts of aerosols on a global scale.

This Special Issue aims to gather both experimental and model contributions on the characterization of the physical, chemical, and optical properties of aerosol, with a special focus on regional and global climate impacts. We invite submissions exploring the following topics: Results from global monitoring networks, long-term datasets on aerosol chemistry and optical properties variability and trends, global models-measurements comparisons, satellite measurements, and in-situ vertical characterization (from airborne platforms such as aircrafts or balloons). This list is not exhaustive and all relevant research will be considered. Contributions presenting and describing new monitoring networks and measurement protocols are also welcome.

Dr. Gloria Titos
Dr. Alberto Cazorla
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Atmosphere is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Aerosol properties
  • Radiative forcing
  • Spatial variability
  • Long-term trends
  • Vertical distribution
  • Monitoring networks

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 4206 KiB  
Article
Long-Term Aerosol Trends and Variability over Central Saudi Arabia Using Optical Characteristics from Solar Village AERONET Measurements
by Mohammed Al Otaibi, Ashraf Farahat, Bassam Tawabini, M. Hafidz Omar, Emad Ramadan, Abdelgadir Abuelgasim and Ramesh P. Singh
Atmosphere 2019, 10(12), 752; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10120752 - 28 Nov 2019
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3826
Abstract
Natural and anthropogenic aerosols over the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) play a major role in affecting the regional radiation budget. The long-term variability of these aerosols’ physical and optical parameters, including aerosol optical depth (AOD) and Ångström exponent (α), were measured at [...] Read more.
Natural and anthropogenic aerosols over the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) play a major role in affecting the regional radiation budget. The long-term variability of these aerosols’ physical and optical parameters, including aerosol optical depth (AOD) and Ångström exponent (α), were measured at a location near central KSA using the Solar Village (SV) AERONET (Aerosol Robotic Network) station during the period December 1999–January 2013. The AERONET measurements show an overall increase in AOD on an annual basis. This upward trend is mainly attributed to a prolonged increase in the monthly/seasonal mean AOD during March–June and during August–September. In contrast, lower AOD values were observed during November–December. This can be attributed to a low frequency of dust outbreaks and higher precipitation rates. An overall, weak declining trend in α was observed, except during the summer. The spring and summer seasons experienced a pronounced increase in the number of coarse particles (~2 µm) during April 2006–January 2013 as compared to December 1999–March 2006, suggesting an increase in natural aerosol loadings. Using the HYSPLIT model, it was found that the March 2009 dust storm contributed to the mixing of long-transported dust with anthropogenic local emissions near the SV. The results suggest that extensive industrial activity contributed to the increase of anthropogenic emissions over KSA during the period April 2006–January 2013. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Atmospheric Aerosol Regional Monitoring)
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15 pages, 5511 KiB  
Article
Web Application for Atmospheric Aerosol Data Management: Software and Case Study in the Spanish Network on Environmental Differential Mobility Analysers
by Javier Andrade-Garda, Sonia Suárez-Garaboa, Antonio Álvarez-Rodríguez, María Piñeiro-Iglesias, Purificación López-Mahía, Elías Díaz-Ramiro, Begoña Artíñano and Francisco J. Gómez-Moreno
Atmosphere 2019, 10(5), 279; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10050279 - 17 May 2019
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3101
Abstract
SCALA© (Sampling Campaigns for Aerosols in the Low Atmosphere) is a web-based software system that was developed in a multidisciplinary manner to integrally support the documentation and the management and analysis of atmospheric aerosol data from sampling campaigns. The software development process applied [...] Read more.
SCALA© (Sampling Campaigns for Aerosols in the Low Atmosphere) is a web-based software system that was developed in a multidisciplinary manner to integrally support the documentation and the management and analysis of atmospheric aerosol data from sampling campaigns. The software development process applied considered the prototyping and the evolutionary approaches. The software product (SCALA©) allows for the comprehensive management of the sampling campaigns’ life cycle (management of the profiles and processes involved in the start-up, development and closure of a campaign) and provides support for both intra- and inter-campaigns data analysis. The pilot deployment of SCALA© considers the Spanish Network on Environmental Differential Mobility Analysers (DMAs) (REDMAAS) and the PROACLIM project. This research project involves, among other objectives, the study of temporal and spatial variations of the atmospheric aerosol through a set of microphysical properties (size distribution, optical properties, hygroscopicity, etc.) measured in several locations in Spain. The main conclusions regarding size distribution are presented in this work. These have been have been extracted through SCALA© from the data collected in the REDMAAS 2015 and 2019 intercomparison campaigns and two years (2015 and 2016) of measurements with two Scanning Mobility Particle Sizers (SMPS) at CIEMAT (Madrid, central Spain) and UDC (A Coruña, NW of Spain) sites. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Atmospheric Aerosol Regional Monitoring)
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16 pages, 7198 KiB  
Article
Evaluation of JAXA Himawari-8-AHI Level-3 Aerosol Products over Eastern China
by Ding Li, Kai Qin, Lixin Wu, Jian Xu, Husi Letu, Bin Zou, Qin He and Yifei Li
Atmosphere 2019, 10(4), 215; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10040215 - 22 Apr 2019
Cited by 25 | Viewed by 4116
Abstract
A novel geostationary satellite, the H8/AHI (Himawari-8/Advanced Himawari Imager), greatly improved the scan times per day covering East Asia, and the operational products have been stably provided for a period of time. Currently, atmospheric aerosol pollution is a major concern in China. H8/AHI [...] Read more.
A novel geostationary satellite, the H8/AHI (Himawari-8/Advanced Himawari Imager), greatly improved the scan times per day covering East Asia, and the operational products have been stably provided for a period of time. Currently, atmospheric aerosol pollution is a major concern in China. H8/AHI aerosol products with a high temporal resolution are helpful for real-time monitoring of subtle aerosol variation. However, the H8/AHI aerosol optical thickness (AOT) product has been updated three times since its launch, and the evaluation of this dataset is currently rare. In order to validate its accuracy, this study compared the H8/AHI Level-3 (L3) hourly AOT products of all versions with measurements obtained from eleven sunphotometer sites located in eastern China from 2015 to 2018. Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Collection 6 AOT products from the same period were also used for inter-comparison. Although the H8/AHI AOT retrievals in version 010 show a moderate agreement with ground-based observations (correlation coefficient (R): 0.66–0.85), and the time series analysis shows that it can effectively monitor hourly variation, it suffers from an obvious underestimation of 0.3 compared to ground-based and MODIS observations. After the retrieval algorithm updated the predefined aerosol model, the overall underestimation of AHI AOTs was solved (version 010 slope: 0.43–0.62, version 030 slope: 0.75–1.02), and the AOTs in version 030 show a high agreement with observations from ten sites (R: 0.73–0.91). In addition, the surface reflectance dataset derived from the minimum reflectivity model in version 010 is inaccurate in parts of eastern China, for both “bright” and “dark” land surfaces, which leads to the overestimation of the AOT values under low aerosol loads at the Beijing and Xianghe sites. After the update of the surface dataset in version 030, this phenomenon was alleviated, resulting in no significant difference in scatterplots under different surface conditions. The AOTs of H8/AHI version 030 show a significant improvement compared to the previous two versions, but the spatial distribution of AHI is still different from MODIS AOT products due to the differences in sensors and algorithms. Therefore, although the evaluation in this study demonstrates the effectiveness of H8/AHI AOT products for aerosol monitoring at fine temporal resolutions, the performance of H8/AHI AOT products needs further study by considering more conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Atmospheric Aerosol Regional Monitoring)
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17 pages, 2928 KiB  
Article
Inferring Fine-Mode and Coarse-Mode Aerosol Complex Refractive Indices from AERONET Inversion Products over China
by Qi-Xiang Chen, Wen-Xiang Shen, Yuan Yuan, Ming Xie and He-Ping Tan
Atmosphere 2019, 10(3), 158; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10030158 - 25 Mar 2019
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3494
Abstract
Detailed knowledge of the complex refractive indices (m) of fine- and coarse-mode aerosols is important for enhancing understanding of the effect of atmospheric aerosol on climate. However, studies on obtaining aerosol modal m values are particularly scarce. This study proposes a [...] Read more.
Detailed knowledge of the complex refractive indices (m) of fine- and coarse-mode aerosols is important for enhancing understanding of the effect of atmospheric aerosol on climate. However, studies on obtaining aerosol modal m values are particularly scarce. This study proposes a method for inferring m values of fine- and coarse-mode aerosol using the inversion products from the AERONET ground-based aerosol robotic network. By identifying the aerosol type, modal m values are constrained and then inferred based on a maximum likelihood method. Numerical tests showed that compared with the reference values, our method slightly overestimates the real parts of the refractive indices (n), but underestimates the imaginary parts (k) by 2.11% ± 11.59% and 8.4% ± 26.42% for fine and coarse modes, respectively. We applied this method to 21 AERONET sites around China, which yielded annual mean m values of (1.45 ± 0.04) + (0.0109 ± 0.0046)i and (1.53 ± 0.01) + (0.0039 ± 0.0011)i for fine- and coarse-mode aerosols, respectively. It is observed that the fine mode n decreased from 1.53 to 1.39 with increasing latitude, while fine mode k values were generally larger than 0.008 over most of China. The coarse-mode n and k ranged from 1.52 to 1.56 and from 0.002 to 0.006, respectively. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Atmospheric Aerosol Regional Monitoring)
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13 pages, 2429 KiB  
Article
Characteristics and Sources of Water-Soluble Ions in PM2.5 in the Sichuan Basin, China
by Yuan Chen, Shao-dong Xie, Bin Luo and Chongzhi Zhai
Atmosphere 2019, 10(2), 78; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10020078 - 15 Feb 2019
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 3306
Abstract
To track the particulate pollution in Sichuan Basin, sample filters were collected in three urban sites. Characteristics of water-soluble inorganic ions (WSIIs) were explored and their sources were analyzed by principal component analysis (PCA). During 2012–2013, the PM2.5 concentrations were 86.7 ± [...] Read more.
To track the particulate pollution in Sichuan Basin, sample filters were collected in three urban sites. Characteristics of water-soluble inorganic ions (WSIIs) were explored and their sources were analyzed by principal component analysis (PCA). During 2012–2013, the PM2.5 concentrations were 86.7 ± 49.7 μg m−3 in Chengdu (CD), 78.6 ± 36.8 μg m−3 in Neijiang (NJ), and 71.7 ± 36.9 μg m−3 in Chongqing (CQ), respectively. WSIIs contributed about 50% to PM2.5, and 90% of them were secondary inorganic ions. NH4+ and NO3− roughly followed the seasonal pattern of PM2.5 variations, whereas the highest levels of SO42− appeared in summer and autumn. PM2.5 samples were most acidic in autumn and winter, but were alkaline in spring. The aerosol acidity increased with the increasing level of anion equivalents. SO42− primarily existed in the form of (NH4)2SO4. Full neutralization of NH4+ to NO3− was only observed in low levels of SO42− + NO3−, and NO3− existed in various forms. SO42− and NO3− were formed mainly through homogeneous reactions, and there was the existence of heterogeneous reactions under high relative humidity. The main identified sources of WSIIs included coal combustion, biomass burning, and construction dust. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Atmospheric Aerosol Regional Monitoring)
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14 pages, 6928 KiB  
Article
Occurrence and Reverse Transport of Severe Dust Storms Associated with Synoptic Weather in East Asia
by Wenshuai Li, Wencai Wang, Yang Zhou, Yuanyuan Ma, Daizhou Zhang and Lifang Sheng
Atmosphere 2019, 10(1), 4; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10010004 - 24 Dec 2018
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 3146
Abstract
The range and time of the environmental effects of Asian dust are closely dependent on the pathways and the speed of dust plume movement. In this study, the occurrence and movement of two dust storms in China in May 2017 were examined by [...] Read more.
The range and time of the environmental effects of Asian dust are closely dependent on the pathways and the speed of dust plume movement. In this study, the occurrence and movement of two dust storms in China in May 2017 were examined by using open space- and ground-based measurement data and the backward trajectories of dust plumes. Results from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) reanalysis data showed that the dust storms were caused by the rapid coupling development of Mongolian cyclones and Asian highs. After the dust plumes arrived at the Southeastern China in the first dust event, the stable weather conditions and the Asian high slowed down the movement of the plumes, leading to the gradual diffusion of dust particles. Moreover, the Asian high in the first event and the Huabei low (a low-pressure system in North China Plain) in the second altered the movement direction of the dust plumes from southward to northward, which we denote as the “dust reverse transport (DRT)”. The DRT occurred only within the lower troposphere even though dust plumes could extended to 5–10 km in vertical direction. Statistical results of 28 spring dust events occurred in 2015–2018 showed that all these dust storms were triggered by Mongolian cyclones and/or Asian highs, and approximately 39% moved as the DRT, indicating about one third of severe spring dust storms could influence larger areas or longer time than the remained ones. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Atmospheric Aerosol Regional Monitoring)
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