Influences of relative humidity on aerosol optical properties and aerosol radiative forcing during ACE-Asia

In situ measurements at Gosan, South Korea, and onboard C-130 aircraft during ACE-Asia were analyzed to investigate the influence of relative humidity (RH) on aerosol optical properties and radiative forcing. The temporal variation of aerosol chemical composition at the Gosan super-site was highly dependent on the air mass transport pathways and source region. RH in the springtime over East Asia were distributed with very high spatial and temporal variation. The RH profile onboard C-130 aircraft measurements exhibits a mixed layer height of about 2 km. Aerosol scattering coefficient (σsp) under ambient RH was greatly enhanced as compared with that at dry RH (RH<40%). From the aerosol optical and radiative transfer modeling studies, we found that the extinction and scattering coefficients are greatly enhanced with RH. Single scattering albedo with RH is also sensitively changed in the longer wavelength. Asymmetry parameter (g) is gradually increased with RH although g decreases with wavelength at a given RH. Aerosol optical depth (AOD) at 550 nm and RH of 50% increased to factors 1.24, 1.51, 2.16, and 3.20 at different RH levels 70, 80, 90, and 95%, respectively. Diurnal-averaged aerosol radiative forcings for surface, TOA, and atmosphere were increased with RH because AOD was increased with RH due to hygroscopic growth of aerosol particles. This result implies that the hygroscopic growth due to water-soluble or hydrophilic particles in the lower troposphere may significantly modify the magnitude of aerosol radiative forcing both at the surface and TOA. However, the diurnal-averaged radiative forcing efficiencies at the surface, TOA, and atmosphere were decreased with increasing RH. The decrease of the forcing efficiency with RH results from the fact that increasing rate of aerosol optical depth with RH is greater than the increasing rate of aerosol radiative forcing with RH.