Characterizing Emissions from Energy Sources Using Aerosol Properties Over Multiple-Wavelengths

Over the past decades there has been both rapid economic growth and increase in energy use in Asia. This has led to a rapid change in the emissions of aerosols and trace gases associated with climate and air pollution, having dramatic effects on the atmosphere. Aerosol absorption optical depth (AAOD) is a measure of the optical-physical-chemical information of particles which absorb visible and UV radation, including: black carbon (BC), dust, and brown carbon (BrC). This subset of total aerosols has a significant and unique effect on air pollution and climate change, including altering the radiative balance and impacting the hydrological cycle. Different unbiased models and methods based on non-aerosol measurments are used to disaggregate urban and industrial areas from suburban and rural areas. These regions are then sampled as constrained in space and time by MISR to elucidate and quantify information about the absorbing particle size distribution, ageing, and emissions in these rapidly changing and/or heavily polluted areas.

To better understand AAOD and its impact on the atmosphere, this work uses both empirical orthogonal decomposition (EOF) and a MIE model based on a core/shell assumption, combining information from from both MISR AAOD and OMI NO2, to determine information about the geospatial and temporal distribution of absorbing aerosols, the size of these particles, regional differences, and physical and chemical properties. The AAOD is constrained by inverted NO2 emissions profiles to find the regional distribution of particulate matter. The differences in the observed values of SSA and AAOD over the four different visible bands are then used to drive the MIE model, which in turn is used to produce a probability distribution of the core size, shell size, and arosol mixing state. The inverse performance of the particle size distributions and mixing state are observed to be dramatically different over urban, industrial, and suburban areas, in specific during the times as constrained by OMI. The impacts of these changes to the atmospheric and radiative profiles over both the source regions are analyzed and used to further evaluate the atmospheric loading, transport, aging, and emissions of abosbing aerosols, with the goal of developing and quantifying the impacts on these regions undergoing the largest amount of change in the region.