Instrumentation to Measure Aerosol Mass and Composition for Research to Improve Satellite Remote Sensing and Modeling of Atmospheric Composition

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Particles suspended in the atmosphere, known as aerosols, have major roles in climate change and air quality. Aerosols affect climate by scattering and absorbing solar radiation, and by affecting cloud properties. Respired aerosols are a significant health hazard. The development of algorithms to observe aerosols through satellite remote sensing, and to represent aerosol processes through global modelling, benefits from existing ground-based sun-photometer measurements of aerosol in the entire atmospheric column. However, uncertainty remains about the fraction of those aerosols at ground-level, and about their chemical composition. We propose instrumentation to measure ground-level aerosol mass and composition at existing sun-photometer locations. Together these measurements would yield valuable information to evaluate and improve satellite observations of atmospheric aerosols, and global modeling of aerosol processes.