Microphysical and optical properties of aerosol particles in urban zone during ESCOMPTE

Microphysical and optical properties of the main aerosol species on a peri-urban site have been investigated during the ESCOMPTE experiment. Ammonium sulfate (AS), nitrate (N), black carbon (BC), particulate organic matter (POM), sea salt (SS) and mineral aerosol (D) size distributions have been used, associated with their refractive index, to compute, from the Mie theory, the key radiative aerosol properties as the extinction coefficient K-ext, the mass extinction efficiencies sigma(ext), the single scattering albedo omega(0) and the asymmetry parameter g at the wavelength of 550 nm. Optical computations show that 90% of the light extinction is due to anthropogenic aerosol and only 10% is due to natural aerosol (SS and D). 44 +/- 6% of the extinction is due to (AS) and 40 6% to carbonaceous particles (20 +/- 4% to BC and 21 +/- 4% to POM). Nitrate aerosol has a weak contribution of 5 +/- 2%. Computations of the mass extinction efficiencies a,, single scattering albedo omega(0) and asymmetry parameter g indicate that the optical properties of the anthropogenic aerosol are often quite different from those yet published and generally used in global models. For example, the (AS) mean specific mass extinction presents a large difference with the value classically adopted at low relative humidity (h < 60%) (2.6 +/- 0.5 instead of 6 m(2) g(-1) at 550 nm). The optical properties of the total aerosol layer, including all the aerosol species, indicate a mean observed single-scattering albedo omega(0) = 0.85 +/- 0.05, leading to an important absorption of the solar radiation and an asymmetry parameter g = 0.59 +/- 0.05 which are in a reasonably good agreements with the AERONET retrieval of omega(0) (= 0.86 +/- 0.05) and g (= 0.64 +/- 0.05) at this wavelength. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.