Study of Aerosol Chemical Composition Based on Aerosol Optical Properties

We investigated the variation of aerosol absorption optical properties obtained from the CIMEL Sun-Photometer measurements over three years (2012-2014) at three AERONET sites GSFC; MD Science\textunderscore Center and Tudor Hill, Bermuda. These sites were chosen based on the availability of data and locations that can receive different types of aerosols from land and ocean. These absorption properties, mainly the aerosol absorption angstrom exponent, were analyzed to examine the corresponding aerosol chemical composition. We observed that the retrieved absorption angstrom exponents over the two sites, GSFC and MD Science Center, are near 1 (the theoretical value for black carbon) and with low single scattering albedo values during summer seasons indicating presence of black carbon. Strong variability of aerosol absorption properties were observed over Tudor Hill and will be analyzed based on the air mass embedded from ocean side and land side. We will also present the seasonal variability of these properties based on long-range air mass sources at these three sites.