Theoretical Method to Estimate Vertical Distribution of Aerosol Absorption Coefficient

To evaluate the effects of aerosol radiation forcing and laser atmospheric transport, it is necessary to know the parameters of aerosol light absorption characteristics and its vertical distribution. Thus, this paper presents a method based on a combination of field measurements and models to estimate the aerosol absorption coefficient distribution at vertical height. With the proposed method, the aerosol optical depth (AOD) and extinction profile at the entire layer are obtained via inversion with data observed using a sun-photometer and a LiDAR. Then, the aerosol absorption profile is obtained via selecting the corresponding aerosol modes as constraints from the moderate spectral resolution atmospheric transmittance algorithm and computer model (MODTRAN) and santa barbara DISORT atmospheric radiative transfer (SBDART) model. An inversion test is performed using data measured in a field experiment, and the results demonstrate that the proposed method is feasible and can be employed to obtain the vertical distribution of the aerosol absorption coefficient.