Relation between TOMS-AI and air masses in the Northeast Atlantic free troposphere

Statistics – Methodology

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

One of the most useful technique to evaluate the presence of atmospheric aerosol is based on the aerosol index (AI) calculated from the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) data. For this methodology, positive values of AI are related with UV-absorbing aerosols, mainly dust, smoke and volcanic aerosols, and negative values of AI are associated with non-absorbing aerosols. Using the aerosol index (AI) provided by TOMS and isentropic backwards trajectories, we have investigated the relation between the aerosol load of the air masses and the Al values. The back trajectories have been classified in eight categories attending to the contribution of the main aerosols sources, taking into account the geographical regions, the residence time in these sectors and the altitude of the air mass during its evolution towards the Izan~a GAW station (IZO, 28.3 °N 16.5 °W, 2367m asl), Canary Islands. The categories are: African, Maritimes, Atlantic Free Troposphere, European, Maritimes-European, Maritimes-African, European-African, and European-African-Maritimes. Thus this station is characterized mainly by clean air masses with the origin in the middle troposphere and air masses from Africa with an annual frequency of 36% and 10% respectively of the total cases study. Each point of these back trajectories has been associated with the corresponding AI value, obtaining statistical information about the relation between AI values and expected aerosol type at the station. In this Atlantic region, the most important aerosol events are associated with Saharan dust outbreaks. For these episodes we have investigated the influence of the altitude of the air masses that reach IZO station, on the AI value. The main difference is the time that these air masses spend above 2km over the African continent. For air masses associated with Al positive values greater than 0.4 this time is around the 40%, whereas for air masses associated with AI values smaller than 0.4 is around 20%. 0 2003 COSPAR.

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