92nd American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting (January 22-26, 2012)

Thursday, 26 January 2012: 1:45 PM
Aerosols in Northwest China and Implications to Regional Climate
Room 342 (New Orleans Convention Center )
Yue Li, University of Washington, Seattle, WA; and Q. Fu

We analyze the aerosol optical and microphysical parameters, such as aerosol optical depth (AOD), Angstrom exponent and single-scattering albedo, from different satellite measurements, including Multiangle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR), Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Clou-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite observations (CALIPSO), and Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS). Our study will mainly focus on Northwest China, where the desert, including Gobi and Taklamakan, and loess are wide spread and are the main sources of Asian dust. We compare various satellite observations to each other, and then compare satellite observations with ground-based measurements from the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) sites over Northwest China to examine the satellite data quality. Our study will lead to a product of realistic dust aerosol spatial and temporal distribution over Northwest China, and understand what are responsible for such pattern, as well as improve the understanding of aerosol impacts on regional climate.

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