International RADAGAST Experiment in Niamey, Niger: Changes and Drivers of Atmospheric Radiation Balance
The Sahara desert is notorious as a source of massive dust storms. This dust dramatically influences the Earth-atmosphere energy budget through reflecting and absorbing the incoming sunlight. However, this budget is poorly understood, and in particular, we lack quantitative understanding of how the diurnal and seasonal variation of meteorological variables and aerosol properties influence the propagation of solar irradiance through the desert atmosphere. To improve our understanding of these influences, coincident and collocated observations of fluxes, measured from both space and the surface, are highly desirable. Recently, the unique capabilities of the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis (AMMA) Experiment, the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Mobile Facility (AMF), the Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget (GERB) instrument, and the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) were combined effectively as part of a large international project: the Radiative Atmospheric Divergence using AMF, GERB data and AMMA Stations (RADAGAST), which took place in Niamey, Niger, in 2006. The RADAGAST objectives, instrumentation, and scientific background are presented in [1]. Initial results from RADAGAST documented the strong radiative impact of a major Saharan dust storm on the Earth’s radiation budget [2]. A special issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research will include a collection of papers with the more complete results from RADAGAST (e.g., [1,3], and references therein). In particular, a year-long time series from RADAGAST are used to investigate (i) the factors that control the radiative fluxes and the divergence of radiation across the atmosphere [3-5], (ii) seasonal changes in the surface energy balance and associated variations in atmospheric constituents (water vapor, clouds, aerosols) [6], and (iii) sensitivity of microphysical, chemical and optical properties of aerosols to their sources and the atmospheric conditions [7]. Here we show retrievals of the aerosol properties from spectrally resolved solar measurements, the simulated and observed radiative fluxes at the surface, and outline factors that control the magnitude and variability of aerosol and radiative properties [8].
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 969616
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-61628; KP1701000; TRN: US201001%%726
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Current Problems in Atmospheric Radiation (IRS 2008): Proceedings of the International Radiation Symposium. AIP Conference Proceedings, 1100:537-540
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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