Relations between Optically Derived Aerosol Parameters, Humidity, and Air-Quality Data in an Urban Atmosphere

Abstract

This paper deals with diurnal and mensual correlations between ground-based atmospheric observations of columnar and surface optical parameters, standard surface humidity parameters, and surface air-quality data. The implications of a significant portion of small, Rayleigh-free optical depths being attributable to continuum water vapor absorption are analyzed in terms of the impact on the computation of aerosol optical depth and Ångström spectral coefficients in relatively clear atmospheres. Multiwavelength correlation analysis between aerosol optical depth and precipitable water indicators (surface vapor pressure or vertically integrated precpitable water) yielded a systematic, inverse-wavelength type of dependency in the extracted slopes (apparent attenuation coefficients) that was suggestive of a simple correlation between precipitable water and the accumulation-mode number density of the aerosols. On a diurnal basis, increasing trends in aerosol optical depth were negatively correlated with surface relative humidity and thus resulted either from variations in the nature or abundance of dry aerosol or possibly from convection-induced increases in relative humidity at higher altitudes in the aerosol scattering layer. The diurnal trend in aerosol optical depth plus the limited correlation between surface volume extinction coefficients derived from visibility measurements and relative humidity indicated that the aerosol optical scale height, on a diurnal basis, varied in an inverse fashion with surface relative humidity. Correlations between diurnally averaged aerosol optical depths and 24-h averaged surface sulfate measurements indicated the potential of satellite-based pollution monitoring using passive remote sensing data.