Angström coefficient as an indicator of the atmospheric aerosol type for a well-mixed atmospheric boundary layer: Part 1: Model development

The physical and optical properties of an atmospheric aerosol mixture depend on a number of factors. The relative humidity influences the size of hydroscopic particles and the effective radius of an aerosol mixture. In consequence, values of the aerosol extinction, the aerosol optical thickness and the Angstrom coefficient are modified. A similar effect is observed when the aerosol composition changes. A higher content of small aerosol particles causes the effective radius of an aerosol mixture to decrease and the Angstrom coefficient to increase. Both effects are analysed in this paper. The parameters of the size distribution and the type of components used to represent natural atmospheric aerosol mixtures are based on experimental data. The main components are sea-salts (SSA), anthropogenic salts (WS, e.g. NH4HSO4, NH4NO3, (NH4)2SO4), organic carbon (OC) and black carbon (BC). The aerosol optical thickness is modelled using the external mixing approach. The influence of relative humidity on the optical and physical properties of the following aerosol mixtures is investigated: (SSA&WS), (SSA&OC), (SSA&BC), (SSA, WS&OC) and (WS, OC&BC). It is demonstrated that the Angstrom coefficient can be used as a rough indicator of the aerosol type.

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