The radiative effect of an aged, internally mixed Arctic aerosol originating from lower-latitude biomass burning

Abstract

Arctic-haze layers and their radiative effects have been investigated previously in numerous studies as they are known to have an impact on the regional climate. In this study, we report on an event of an elevated aerosol layer, notably consisting of high-absorbing soot particles, observed in the European Arctic free troposphere the 2007 April 14 during the ASTAR 2007 campaign. The ca. 0.5 km vertically thick aerosol layer located at an altitude of around 3 km had a particle-size distribution mode around 250 nm diameter. In this study, we quantify the radiative effect aerosol layers have on the Arctic atmosphere by using in situ observations. Measurements of particles size segregated temperature stability using thermal denuders, indicate that the aerosol in the optically active size range was chemically internally mixed. In the plume, maximum observed absorption and scattering coefficients were 3 × 10−6 and 20 × 10−6 m−1, respectively. Observed microphysical and optical properties were used to constrain calculations of heating rates of an internally mixed aerosol assuming two different surface albedos that represent snow/ice covered and open ocean. The average profile resulted in a heating rate in the layer of 0.2 K d−1 for the high-albedo case and 0.15 K d−1 for the low albedo case. This calculated dependence on albedo based on actual observations corroborates previous numerical simulations. The heating within the plume resulted in a measurable signal shown as an enhancement in the temperature of a few tenths of a degree. Although the origin of the aerosol plume could not unambiguously be determined, the microphysical properties of the aerosol had strong similarities with previously reported biomass burning plumes. With a changing climate, short-lived pollutants such as biomass plumes may become more frequent in the Arctic and have important radiative effects at regional scale.