Daytime variation of shortwave direct radiative forcing of biomass burning aerosols from GOES-8 imager

Abstract

Hourly Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-8 (GOES-8) imager data (1344-1944 UTC) from 20 July-31 August 1998 were used to study the daytime variation of shortwave direct radiative forcing (SWARF) of smoke aerosols over biomass burning regions in South America (4°-16°S, 51°-65°W). Vicarious calibration procedures were used to adjust the GOES visible channel reflectance values for the degradation in signal response. Using Mie theory and discrete ordinate radiative transfer (DISORT) calculations, smoke aerosol optical thickness (AOT) was estimated at 0.67 μm. The GOES-retrieved AOT was then compared against ground-based AOT retrieved values. Using the retrieved GOES-8 AOT, a four-stream broadband radiative transfer model was used to compute shortwave fluxes for smoke aerosols at the top of the atmosphere (TOA). The daytime variation of smoke AOT and SWARF was examined for the study area. For selected days, the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) TOA shortwave (SW) fluxes are compared against the model-derived SW fluxes. Results of this study show that the GOES-derived AOT is in excellent agreement with Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET)-derived AOT values with linear correlation coefficient of 0.97. The TOA CERES-estimated SW fluxes compare well with the model-calculated SW fluxes with linear correlation coefficient of 0.94. For August 1998 the daytime diurnally averaged AOT and SWARF for the study area is 0.63 ± 0.39 and -45.8 ± 18.8 W m-2, respectively. This is among the first studies to estimate the daytime diurnal variation of SWARF of smoke aerosols using satellite data.