This paper investigates the important difference in the relationship between brightness temperatures between the 11-μm and the 12-μn AVHRR data and the microphysical properties of the semitransparent cirrus clouds. In the nonscattering approximation, the emittance for channels 4 and 5 are related through the absorption coefficient ratio that is the key parameter giving access to the size of cloud particles. The observed mean value of this parameter corresponds to effective radius of 18 μm for polydisperse spheres and 12 μm for polydisperse infinitely long ice cylinders. Taking the multiple scattering into account, the brightness temperature difference enhances much more for cylinders than for spheres owing to the fact that the forward peak of scattering is less large for cylinders. To obtain the size of cloud particles, the method developed in the nonscattering case is still applicable if one makes use of the effective emittance that implicitly includes the effects of mattering. Thus, an effective absorption coefficient ratio is defined and we derive a direct relationship between this ratio and the optical properties of the cloud particles. The mean value of the effective absorption coefficient ratio corresponds to ice spheres of effective radius of 26 μm or a bit less in the case of water spheres (supercooled droplets), but no agreement can be obtained for fully randomly oriented cylinders.

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The Aerosol, Radiation and Clouds in southern Africa (AEROCLO-sA) project investigates the role of aerosols on the regional climate of southern Africa. This is a unique environment where natural and anthropogenic aerosols and a semipermanent and widespread stratocumulus (Sc) cloud deck are found. The project aims to understand the dynamical, chemical, and radiative processes involved in aerosol–cloud–radiation interactions over land and ocean and under various meteorological conditions. The AEROCLO-sA field campaign was conducted in August and September of 2017 over Namibia. An aircraft equipped with active and passive remote sensors and aerosol in situ probes performed a total of 30 research flight hours. In parallel, a ground-based mobile station with state-of-the-art in situ aerosol probes and remote sensing instrumentation was implemented over coastal Namibia, and complemented by ground-based and balloonborne observations of the dynamical, thermodynamical, and physical properties of the lower troposphere. The focus laid on mineral dust emitted from salty pans and ephemeral riverbeds in northern Namibia, the advection of biomass-burning aerosol plumes from Angola subsequently transported over the Atlantic Ocean, and aerosols in the marine boundary layer at the ocean–atmosphere interface. This article presents an overview of the AEROCLO-sA field campaign with results from the airborne and surface measurements. These observations provide new knowledge of the interactions of aerosols and radiation in cloudy and clear skies in connection with the atmospheric dynamics over southern Africa. They will foster new advanced climate simulations and enhance the capability of spaceborne sensors, ultimately allowing a better prediction of future climate and weather in southern Africa.

Abstract. The Chemistry-Aerosol Mediterranean Experiment (ChArMEx; http://charmex.lsce.ipsl.fr) is a collaborative research program federating international activities to investigate Mediterranean regional chemistry-climate interactions. A special observing period (SOP-1a) including intensive airborne measurements was performed in the framework of the Aerosol Direct Radiative Impact on the regional climate in the MEDiterranean region (ADRIMED) project during the Mediterranean dry season over the western and central Mediterranean basins, with a focus on aerosol-radiation measurements and their modeling. The SOP-1a took place from 11 June to 5 July 2013. Airborne measurements were made by both the ATR-42 and F-20 French research aircraft operated from Sardinia (Italy) and instrumented for in situ and remote-sensing measurements, respectively, and by sounding and drifting balloons, launched in Minorca. The experimental setup also involved several ground-based measurement sites on islands including two ground-based reference stations in Corsica and Lampedusa and secondary monitoring sites in Minorca and Sicily. Additional measurements including lidar profiling were also performed on alert during aircraft operations at EARLINET/ACTRIS stations at Granada and Barcelona in Spain, and in southern Italy. Remote-sensing aerosol products from satellites (MSG/SEVIRI, MODIS) and from the AERONET/PHOTONS network were also used. Dedicated meso-scale and regional modeling experiments were performed in relation to this observational effort. We provide here an overview of the different surface and aircraft observations deployed during the ChArMEx/ADRIMED period and of associated modeling studies together with an analysis of the synoptic conditions that determined the aerosol emission and transport. Meteorological conditions observed during this campaign (moderate temperatures and southern flows) were not favorable to producing high levels of atmospheric pollutants or intense biomass burning events in the region. However, numerous mineral dust plumes were observed during the campaign, with the main sources located in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, leading to aerosol optical depth (AOD) values ranging between 0.2 and 0.6 (at 440 nm) over the western and central Mediterranean basins. One important point of this experiment concerns the direct observations of aerosol extinction onboard the ATR-42, using the CAPS system, showing local maxima reaching up to 150 M m −1 within the dust plume. Non-negligible aerosol extinction (about 50 M m −1 ) has also been observed within the marine boundary layer (MBL). By combining the ATR-42 extinction coefficient observations with absorption and scattering measurements, we performed a complete optical closure revealing excellent agreement with estimated optical properties. This additional information on extinction properties has allowed calculation of the dust single scattering albedo (SSA) with a high level of confidence over the western Mediterranean. Our results show a moderate variability from 0....

[1] During the dry season in the Western Africa region the outbreaks of biomass burning aerosols occur on a background of frequent dust storms. In the frame of the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis (AMMA) campaign we studied optical properties and radiative effects of aerosol mixture and dust observed from January to March 2006 over M'Bour, Senegal. The aerosol burden during the observing period was notably below the average of previous years. However, variability of aerosol sizes and spectral absorption were found as representative. The lidar obtained extinction profiles suggested aerosol transport in two layers (or one elevated layer) for events with two different aerosol types, called aerosol mixture in the paper. Low-altitude transport was observed for dust. The broadband solar radiative fluxes and aerosol radiative effects were analyzed by combining measurements and simulations. The simulations relied on retrieved column aerosol properties and are products of Aerosol Robotic Network data processing. The 24-h average aerosol radiative effect yielded cooling at the bottom and at the top of the atmosphere for all the analyzed events of aerosol mixture and dust. The radiative efficiency (radiative effect scaled by optical thickness) at the bottom of the atmosphere and within the aerosol layer appeared to be stronger in case of mixture than in case of pure dust due to enhanced absorption ability of former. We also evaluated the importance of accounting for dust particles nonsphericity for simulating radiative effects. Our test showed that neglecting of aerosol particle shape can result in pronounced bias, up to 10% overestimation of daily average aerosol radiative effect.