Climatology of aerosol optical properties near the New England coast: preparation for the Two Column Aerosol Program (TCAP) field campaign

A key objective of the U.S. Department of Energy's Two Column Aerosol Project (TCAP) is to provide observations with which to evaluate the uncertainty in model simulations of aerosol optical depth (AOD) and their relation to estimates of aerosol radiative forcing and hence, to climate. To meet this objective, detailed ground-based aerosol measurements will be made via deployment of the ARM Mobile Facility (AMF) and the Mobile Aerosol Observing System (MAOS) at Cape Cod, Massachusetts for a 12-month period starting in the summer of 2012. These measurements will be supported by two scheduled aircraft campaigns using the ARM Aerial Facility's (AAF) G-1 aircraft and the NASA B-200 aircraft in July 2012 and again in February 2013. Each campaign will include sampling within two atmospheric columns using the aircrafts; one column will be located directly over, or very close to, Cape Cod, while the second will be over a relatively remote maritime location. This preliminary study presented here is designed to select the optimum location of the second, remote maritime atmospheric column using the mean and standard deviation of previously observed AODs from surface and space. An area with the large variability in AOD will be considered as a potential location for evaluation of the outputs from atmospheric models. In this study, we present regional climatological values of (1) AOD from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) on Terra and Aqua satellite platforms; (2) single scattering albedo from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) satellite; (3) the vertical distribution of aerosol layers from the Cloud Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) satellite; and (4) the long term aerosol optical properties from the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) surface sunphotometer at Martha's Vineyard, MA. Seasonal and geographical variations in these quantities will be analyzed and possible explanations will be presented based on regional meteorology and emissions.