A Measurement-Based Climatology of Aerosol Radiative Properties and Direct Radiative Forcing in the Southeastern U.S.-Initial Results from a Regionally-Representative Site

The southeastern U.S.(SEUS), home to large emission sources of biogenic VOCs, is one of only a few regions where surface temperatures did not increase from 1901-2005. Recent studies (Goldstein et al., 2008) show that negative top-of-atmosphere (TOA) aerosol direct radiative forcing (DRF) is consistent with a warm-season regional cooling effect dominated by secondary organic aerosols resulting from BVOC oxidation in the presence of anthropogenic NOx and SO2. Established in 2009, the Appalachian Atmospheric Interdisciplinary Research Facility (AppalAIR) at Appalachian State University is home to the only co-located NOAA-ESRL and NASA AERONET aerosol monitoring sites in the SEUS. Equipped with a comprehensive list of aerosol optical, microphysical, and newly-added chemical measurements, this regionally representative, high elevation site (1100 m asl) removed from local pollution sources allows us to significantly advance the state of the science by better quantifying regional aerosol DRF, the relative contributions of source types and source regions to DRF, seasonal and diurnal DRF variability, and an estimate of the anthropogenic contribution to DRF. Seasonal statistics of measured aerosol optical and microphysical properties, aerosol optical depth, and aerosol DRF will be presented. The optical property statistics are placed in the context of those measured at the other three U.S.-based NOAA-ESRL aerosol monitoring sites. Winter months are characterized by smaller, more absorbing particles, low aerosol loading, and negligible DRF. Summer months are characterized by lower aerosol concentrations of primarily scattering particles, high aerosol loading, and a significant negative DRF. Aerosols measured at AppalAIR were smaller in size than those measured at the other U.S. NOAA-ESRL sites for all seasons and seasonal variability of aerosol light scattering was largest. Air mass back-trajectories were used to classify aerosols by source type and region for each season in order to assess the relative influences of source types and regions on DRF. Results from this study will also be presented. A time-of-flight aerosol mass spectrometer will soon be operational, leading to the apportionment of aerosol optical properties by chemical composition and expansion of currently-employed techniques to include estimates of the relative anthropogenic contribution to DRF. Vertical aerosol and cloud layer profiles measured by a recently-deployed micro-pulsed lidar and the hygroscopic dependence of aerosol total light scattering and hemispheric backscattering measured by a scanning humidograph will be incorporated into the radiative transfer model used to compute DRF, leading to improved accuracy and the capability to validate and constrain aerosol properties in regional CTMs and to validate satellite-based aerosol retrievals.