The aerosol effect on clouds was explored using remote sensing of aerosol and cloud data at Shouxian, China. Non-precipitation, ice-free, and overcast clouds were firstly chosen by a combination of sky im- ages from the Total Sky Imager （TSI）, cloud base heights from the Ceilometer, and vertical temperature profiles from the Balloon-Borne Sounding System （BBSS）. Six cases were chosen in summer, and seven in autumn. The averaged cloud effective radii （re）, cloud optical depth （COD）, aerosol total light scattering coefficient （a）, and liquid water path （LWP） are, respectivey, 6.47 μm, 35.4, 595.9 mm-1, 0.19 mm in summer, and 6.07 μm, 96.0, 471.7 mm-1, 0.37 mm in autumn. The correlation coefficient between re and tc was found to change from negative to positive value as LWP increases.
TANG Jin-PingWANG Pu-CaiDUAN Min-ZhengCHEN Hong-BinXIA Xiang-AoLIAO Hong
Using the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer （TOMS） monthly aerosol optical depth （AOD） at 500 nm data from 1980 to 2001 in north China, the spatial and temporal variations of AOD were examined. Seasonal AODs in Taklimakan Desert were 0.69 and 0.44 in spring and summer, respectively, which were mainly due to frequent occurrences of dust events in this region. Dust activities in spring also led to high aerosol loading in Gobi Desert and in northeast China where spring AODs were 0.33 and 0.29, respectively. Heavily impacted by events such as volcano eruption, forest fires and extraordinary dust storms, AODs showed large inter-annual variations. A decreasing tendency in AOD was observed in north China during 1980-1991, though a reverse tendency was revealed during 1997-2001, especially for spring AOD in northeast China. Further study is required to figure out how much human activities have contributed to the AOD tendency in north China.
