The thermal infrared optical depth of mineral dust retrieved from
integrated CALIOP and IIR observations
Abstract
Recent studies reveal that a higher fraction of coarse mineral dust
particles than that estimated by climate model simulations has been
observed in the atmosphere, leading to a more significant positive
(i.e., warming) longwave (LW) thermal infrared (TIR) direct radiative
effect (DRE). However, the magnitude of this DRE remains highly
uncertain because our understanding of the radiative properties,
quantitatively represented by the optical depth of dust, especially
information on the TIR, remains limited. This study presents a simple
approach to retrieve the thermal infrared dust aerosol optical depth
(DAODTIR) over oceans during nighttime using the observations from the
Infrared Imaging Radiometer (IIR) and the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with
Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) onboard CALIPSO. For each cloud-free
dust-laden profile identified by the IIR-CALIOP observation, a
Lookup-Table (LUT) of the 10.6 μm IIR band brightness temperatures
difference (dBT) under different DAODTIR with respect to their dust-free
BTs is constructed based on the CALIOP retrieved dust vertical profile
and pre-assumed dust scattering properties using a fast radiative
transfer model. Then the DAODTIR is retrieved by projecting the
IIR-observed dBT on the LUT. Sensitivity studies show that the DAODTIR
retrieval at 10.6 μm is more susceptible to the dust particle size
distribution (PSD) assumption than dust refractive indices. To estimate
the uncertainty caused by PSD assumption, two DAODTIR retrieval
products, one based on the dust PSD from the AERONET at Cape Verde and
the other on an in situ measured PSD from the recent Fennec campaign,
are provided. The retrieval uncertainty is mainly contributed by the BT
difference between the observation and simulation using auxiliary
atmospheric data. The climatology of the retrieval from 2013 to 2019
shows confident spatiotemporal variations of DAODTIR with the
global-averaged value of 0.006 and 0.008 based on different pre-assumed
dust PSDs. Climatological results agree reasonably well with two
independent DAODTIR retrieval products based on the Infrared Atmospheric
Sounding Interferometer (IASI) over the active dust transport regions,
such as North and Tropical Atlantic (r = 0.904 and 0.819) and Indian
Ocean (r = 0.832). The seasonal and interannual variation is also
well-compared (r = 0.758) with AERONET coarse-mode AOD at 97 selected
sites. The synergic CALIOP observation allows the retrieved DAODTIR to
directly compare with the extrapolated DAODTIR from DAOD in visible
(i.e., 532 nm), which helps evaluate the observational constraints on
DAODTIR. This study offers a unique prospect of collocating active lidar
and passive IR observations for retrieving dust DAODTIR.