Observations of elemental carbon and absorption during ACE-Asia and implications for aerosol radiative properties and climate forcing

Abstract

Measurements of elemental carbon (EC) during the Asian Pacific Regional Aerosol Characterization Experiment (ACE-Asia) show that significant amounts of EC were found in the coarse particle phase during yellow sand events. Coagulation during long-range transport is consistent with this observation. The daily averaged specific mass absorption efficiencies of EC were calculated, yielding values of 12.6 ± 2.6 and 14.8 ± 2.3 m2/g for PM10 (particulate matter <10 μm diameter) and PM1, respectively. On a limited number of days, the absorption efficiency for the coarse particles only (PM10 - PM1) was determined to be 5.7 ± 1.6 m2/g during dust days and 2.0 ± 1.0 m2/g for nondust days. These measurements suggest that fine particulate EC was internally mixed and that the dust was possibly somewhat absorbing: Specific mass absorption efficiency was observed to be inversely related to EC mass concentration, a result that does not appear to reflect only air mass aging effects. We speculate that if this observation holds on a global scale, it would reduce the effectiveness of a strategy for mitigating climate change by reducing EC emissions. Model simulations of idealized nonspherical dust radiative properties predict that scattering is strongly (by nearly a factor of 3) dependent on geometry, while absorption is a very weak function of geometry. The net change in shortwave absorption by polluted dust layers due to coagulation of EC with dust is predicted by model calculations to range between -42% and +58%, depending on the assumption about the initial mixing state of the EC and the dust optical properties, with the observations supporting values in the range of -10 to -40%. © 2003 by the American Geophysical Union.