Dust aerosol forward scattering effects on ground-based aerosol optical depth retrievals

Monte Carlo radiative transfer calculations are performed to examine the forward scattering effects on retrievals of dust aerosol optical depth (AOD) from ground-based instruments. We consider dust aerosols with different AOD, effective radius and imaginary refractive index at 0.5 μm wavelength. The shape of dust aerosols is assumed to be spheroids and the equivalent spheres that preserve both volume and projected area (V/P) are also considered. The single-scattering albedos and asymmetry factors of spheroids and V/P-equivalent spheres have small differences, but the scattering phase functions are very different for the scattering angle range ∼90-180°. The relative errors of retrieved AOD caused by forward scattering effects due to the differences between the single-scattering properties of spheroids and spheres are similar. It is shown that at solar zenith angle (SZA) smaller than ∼70° the effect of the forward scattering is generally small although the relative errors in retrieved AOD can be as large as −10% when re=2. However, the largest relative errors, which can reach −40%, appear at high SZA (>∼70°) with AOD larger than 1. This is not caused by the increase of forward scattering intensity, but is due to the strong attenuation of solar direct beam.