Modeling Sea Salt Optical Depth: Generation, Transport, and Hysteresis

Research groups have attempted to model sea salt in the marine boundary layer in several ways. One method relies on a simple wind-based profile to estimate the mass of sea salt particles at a specific location, while another method relies on sea salt generation and transport schemes. Using the University of Colorado/NASA Ames - Community Aerosol and Radiation Model for Atmospheres (CARMA), we show that simple wind-based profile schemes are inadequate to describe the quantity of sea salt in the marine boundary layer at a specific location. We use the NCEP reanalysis product to recreate wind, temperature, and humidity conditions for various time periods and geographic locations. We then model the optical depth of sea salt at remote oceanic locations for comparison to observations of total aerosol optical depth as retrieved by ground-based AERONET sites and data from the AVHRR instrument.