Abstract. Effective use of ocean colour and other bio-optical observations is dependent upon an ability to understand and characterise the angular scattering properties of phytoplankton populations. The two-layered sphere appears to offer the simplest heterogeneous geometry capable of simulating the observed angular scattering of phytoplankton cells. A study is made of the twolayered spherical model for the simulation of the inherent optical properties of algal populations, with a particular focus on backscattering as causal to ocean colour. Homogenous and two-layered volume-equivalent single particle models are used to examine the effects of varying cellular geometry, chloroplast volume, and complex refractive index on optical efficiency factors. A morphology with a chloroplast layer surrounding the cytoplasm is shown to be optimal for algal cell simulation. Appropriate chloroplast volume and refractive index ranges, and means of determining complex refractive indices for cellular chloroplast and cytoplasm material, are discussed with regard to available literature. The approach is expanded to polydispersed populations using equivalent size distribution models: to demonstrate variability in simulated inherent optical properties for phytoplankton assemblages of changing dominant cell size and functional type. Finally, a preliminary validation is conducted of inherent optical properties determined for natural phytoplankton populations with the two-layered model, using the reflectance approximation. The study demonstrates the validity of the two-layered geometry and refractive index structure, and indicates that the combined use of equivalent size distributions with the heterogeneous geometry can be used to establish a quantitative formulation between single particle optics, size and assemblage-specific inherent optical properties, and ocean colour.

Abstract. The daily (24 h) averages of the aerosol radiative forcing (ARF) at the surface and the top of the atmosphere (TOA) were calculated during desert dust events over Granada (southeastern Spain) from 2005 to 2010. A radiative transfer model (SBDART) was utilized to simulate the solar irradiance values (0.31-2.8 µm) at the surface and TOA, using as input aerosol properties retrieved from CIMEL sun photometer measurements via an inversion methodology that uses the sky radiance measurements in principal plane configuration and a spheroid particle shape approximation. This inversion methodology was checked by means of simulated data from aerosol models, and the derived aerosol properties were satisfactorily compared against well-known AERONET products. Good agreement was found over a common spectral interval (0.2-4.0 µm) between the simulated SBDART global irradiances at surface and those provided by AERONET. In addition, simulated SBDART solar global irradiances at the surface have been successfully validated against CM-11 pyranometer measurements. The comparison indicates that the radiative transfer model slightly overestimates (mean bias of 3 %) the experimental solar global irradiance. These results show that the aerosol optical properties used to estimate ARF represent appropriately the aerosol properties observed during desert dust outbreak over the study area. The ARF mean monthly values computed during desert dust events ranged from −13 ± 8 W m −2 to −34 ± 15 W m −2 at surface, from −4 ± 3 W m −2 to −13 ± 7 W m −2 at TOA and from +6 ± 4 to +21 ± 12 W m −2 in the atmosphere. We have checked if the differences found in aerosol optical properties among desert dust sectors translate to differences in ARF. The mean ARF at surface (TOA) were −20 ± 12 (−5 ± 5) W m −2 , −21 ± 9 (−7 ± 5) W m −2 and −18 ± 9 (−6 ± 5) W m −2 for sector A (northern Morocco; northwestern Algeria), sector B (western Sahara, northwestern Mauritania and southwestern Algeria), and sector C (eastern Algeria, Tunisia), respectively. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistical test revealed that daily ARF values at TOA for sector A were significantly different from the other two sectors, likely as a result of the lower values of single scattering albedo obtained for sector A. The mean values of aerosol radiative forcing efficiency at surface (TOA) were −74 ± 12 W m −2 (−17 ± 7 W m −2 ) for sector A, −70 ± 14 W m −2 (−20 ± 9 W m −2 ) for sector B, and −65 ± 16 W m −2 (−22 ± 10 W m −2 ) for sector C, and thus comparable between the three sectors in all seasons.

[1] The main goal of this study is to analyze the dependence of columnar aerosol optical and microphysical properties on source region and transport pathways during desert dust intrusions over Granada (Spain) from January 2005 to December 2010. Columnar aerosol properties have been derived from a non-spherical inversion code using the solar extinction measurements and sky radiances in the principal plane. Two classification methods of the African air masses ending at the study location were used by means of the HYSPLIT back-trajectories analysis. The first one, based on desert dust origin sources, discriminated the optical properties only for sector B (corresponding to western Sahara, northwest Mauritania and southwest Algeria). The particles present marked absorbing properties (low value of single scattering albedo at all wavelengths) during the desert dust events when the air masses were transported from sector A (north Morocco, northwest Algeria). This result may be related to the mixing of desert dust with anthropogenic pollutants from North African industrial areas in addition to the mixing with local anthropogenic aerosol and pollutants transported from European and Mediterranean areas. The second classification method was based on a statistics technique called cluster classification which allows grouping the air masses back trajectories with similar speed and direction of the trajectory. This method showed slight differences in the optical properties between the several transport pathways of air masses. High values of the aerosol optical depth and low mean values of the Angström parameter were associated with longer transport pathways over desert dust sources and slowly moving air masses. Both classification methods showed that the fine mode was mixed with coarse mode, being the fine mode fraction smaller than 55%.Citation: Valenzuela, A., F. J. Olmo, H. Lyamani, M. Antón, A. Quirantes, and L. Alados-Arboledas (2012), Classification of aerosol radiative properties during African desert dust intrusions over southeastern Spain by sector origins and cluster analysis,

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