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The horizontal and vertical attenuation of the aerosol, the sky radiance, and the light absorption coefficient of the aerosol have been determined at wavelengths in the visible. From this set of data the following optical characteristics of the atmospheric aerosol could be derived: vertical optical depth, horizontal extinction and absorption coefficient, scattering phase function, asymmetry parameter, and single scattering albedo. Campaigns have been performed in Almería, Spain, and Vienna, Austria. The aerosol undergoes a considerable variation, as experienced by many other studies. Sometimes the vertical and the horizontal measurements gave similar data; on other days the aerosol at the surface and the aerosol aloft were completely different. The “clearest” aerosol always had the smallest single scattering albedo and thus relatively the highest light absorption. The optical characteristics of the aerosol in the two very different locations were very similar. Using the measured optical data, a radiative transfer calculation was performed, and the radiation reaching the ground was calculated. Comparing the values for the clear aerosol and the days with higher aerosol load, the radiative forcing due to the additional aerosol particles could be determined. The forcing of the aerosol at the ground is always negative, and at the top of the atmosphere it is close to zero or slightly negative. Its dependence on wavelength and zenith angle is presented. The preindustrial aerosol in Europe was estimated, and the forcing due to the present‐day aerosol was determined. At the surface it is negative, but at the top of the atmosphere it is close to zero or positive. This is caused by the light absorption of the European aerosol, which is higher than in most other locations.

In general a force will act on a particle illuminated by light or other radiation and absorbing part of the flux, and as a consequence a motion will result. It is caused by the interaction of gas molecules with the particle's surface, which is hotter than the surroundings. This surface must be inhomogeneous with respect to accommodation and/ or temperature. Gas molecules, impacting and reflected from the particle's surface with accommodation, transfer some momentum from the particle and thus cause the force. For a temperature variation on the particle's surface, the force points from the hot to the cold part, thus in the direction of the incident radiation, and under very special conditions it can be the opposite. A particle's surface having a variation in accommodation coefficient will cause a force from the locations of higher to lower accommodation. Usually this will cause both a linear force and a torque. The latter in combination with Brownian rotation will result in a zero net force. But it is possible that an external torque acting on the particles causes an orientation. The torque can be caused by magnetic or electric fields on magnetic or electric dipoles in the particles or by gravity orienting inhomogeneous particles. For micrometer-and nanometer-sized particles, the photophoretic force can exceed gravity. Photophoresis is important for levitation in the stratosphere and for planet formation, it can also be used for on-line particle separation, or in clean-room technology or in geo-engineering.

[1] In July 2002 the VELETA-2002 field campaign was held in Sierra Nevada (Granada) in the south of Spain. The main objectives of this field campaign were the study of the influence of elevation and atmospheric aerosols on measured UV radiation. In the first stage of the field campaign, a common calibration and intercomparison between Licor-1800 spectroradiometers and Cimel-318 Sun photometers was performed in order to assess the quality of the measurements from the whole campaign. The intercomparison of the Licor spectroradiometers showed, for both direct and global irradiances, that when the comparisons were restricted to the visible part of the spectrum the deviations were within the instruments' nominal accuracies which allows us to rely on these instruments for measuring physical properties of aerosols at the different measurement stations. A simultaneous calibration on AOD data was performed for the Cimel-318 Sun photometers. When a common calibration and methodology was applied, the deviation was lowered to much less than 0.01 for AOD. At the same time an intercomparison has been made between the AOD values given by the spectroradiometers and the Sun photometers, with deviations obtained from 0.01 to 0.03 for the AOD in the visible range, depending on the channel. In the UVA range, the AOD uncertainty was estimated to be around 0.02 and 0.05 for Cimel and Licor respectively. In general the experimental differences were in agreement with this uncertainty estimation. In the UVB range the AOD measurements should not be used due to maximum instrumental uncertainties.