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www.atmos-meas-tech-discuss.net/4/6351/2011/
doi:10.5194/amtd-4-6351-2011
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Smoke aerosol and its radiative effects during extreme fire event over Central Russia in summer 2010
1Faculty of Geography, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
2A. M. Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics RAS, Moscow, 119017, Russia
3Sigma Space Corporation, code 614.4, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
Abstract. Different microphysical, optical and radiative properties of aerosol were analyzed during the severe fires in summer 2010 over Central Russia using ground measurements at two AERONET sites in Moscow and Zvenigorod (Moscow suburb) and radiative measurements in Moscow. Volume aerosol size distribution in smoke conditions was shown to have a bimodal character with the significant prevalence of fine mode aerosol particles which effective radius shifted to higher values (reff-fine = 0.24 μm against approximately 0.15 μm in typical conditions). Imaginary part of refractive index in visible region was characterized by lower values compared with typical conditions (REFI = 0.006 against REFI = 0.01) and single scattering albedo (SSA) was significantly higher (SSAλ=675nm = 0.95 against SSAλ=675nm ~ 0.9). Extremely high daily average AOT's were observed on 6–8 August reaching the absolute maximum on 7 August up to AOT500 = 6.4 in Moscow and AOT500 = 5.9 at Zvenigorod. A dramatic attenuation of solar irradiance at ground in cloudless but smoky conditions was also observed. Maximum irradiance loss has reached 64% for global shortwave irradiance, 91% for UV radiation 300–380 nm and 97% for erythemally-weighted UV irradiance even at relatively high solar elevation due to extremely high AOT and smaller SSA values in UV (0.8–0.9) compared with SSA in visible region of spectrum. The assessments of radiative forcing effect (RFE) at the TOA indicated a significant cooling of the smoky atmosphere. Instant RFE reached −167 Wm−2 at AOT500 = 6.4 while climatological RFE calculated for monthly mean AOT in August 2010 was about −65 Wm−2 compared with −20 Wm−2 for typical aerosol conditions according to the 10 year period of measurements in Moscow.
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Notice on Discussion StatusCitation: Chubarova, N., Nezval', Y., Sviridenkov, M., Smirnov, A., and Slutsker, I.: Smoke aerosol and its radiative effects during extreme fire event over Central Russia in summer 2010, Atmos. Meas. Tech. Discuss., 4, 6351-6386, doi:10.5194/amtd-4-6351-2011, 2011. Bibtex EndNote Reference Manager XML
