Analysis of water vapor effects on aerosol properties and direct radiative forcing in China

The effects of column water vapor (CWV) on aerosol optical properties, radiative effects and classification are studied by using aerosol and CWV data from eight Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) sites in China: Beijing, XiangHe, Shouxian, Taihu, Hong_Kong, Zhongshan_Univ, SACOL, and Mt_WLG, which represents 5 distinct aerosol climatologies in China. Contrast in correlations between aerosol optical depth (AOD) and CWV is found. High correlation coefficient (R) ranging from 0.63–0.94 is observed at Beijing and XiangHe (North China Plain), SACOL (Northwest China) and Mt_WLG (the Tibetan Plateau). R values at stations in the Middle-East China (Shouxian and Taihu) are within 0.32–0.45. AOD shows poor correlation to CWV in Southeast China (R at Hong_Kong and Zhongshan_Univ of 0.15 and 0.27). At most sites, the asymmetry (ASYM) of fine-mode aerosol increases with CWV with R larger than ~0.4. Aerosol direct radiative forcing efficiency (ADRFE) at the bottom of the atmosphere (BOA) is affected by CWV, with R >~0.5 over the north and Middle-East China sites. The statistic results show that an increase of CWV by 0.1 cm could result in enhancements of ADREF at the BOA by about 1.1–2.8 W m−2 at all the sites except Mt_WLG. The aerosol classification shows that the mix-small aerosol type is always dominated under the high CWV air. The clusters of back-trajectories with relative humidity (RH) from Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model indicate that the air mass with high RH is often from south and east directions. The influence of CWV on aerosol properties is mainly shown in the properties of fine mode aerosol, which needs to be considered in the study of aerosol radiative forcing and climate effects.