Study Dust Optical and Radiative Properties Using Optimal Morphological Sets

空气中的尘埃和较小的气溶胶颗粒通过散射光和较长的波长（例如，热）辐射穿过大气层。由于人们对它们的影响还不完全了解，它们还使卫星遥感的热能和散射/反射光的TOA（大气层顶）发射的解释复杂化。这两个方面都是至关重要的，在我们的努力，以获得一个物理上的代表性，定量准确的了解全球环流动态和任何重叠的信号对应于气候变化。粉尘和气溶胶呈现出无数不同的尺寸、形状和成分，这一事实使这个问题变得非常复杂。本研究工作的主要目标是探索通过定义和开发与代表性颗粒类型相关的更易于管理的数量的“最佳形态参数”来降低这种复杂性的可行性。该项目将开发和验证用于估计此类粒子的辐射和光散射特性的数学上复杂的方法，这些方法在使用计算机时间方面比现有方法更有效。一旦充分测试和记录，相关的计算机代码将被广泛提供给更广泛的研究界，以供进一步使用和评估，这一努力的智力价值集中在提高我们对空气中尘埃和气溶胶的光学和辐射特性的知识。由此得出的结论将直接应用于地球辐射收支研究以及从地面和轨道平台遥感大气特性。这项研究的更广泛影响将包括提高准确说明“直接辐射强迫”的能力（例如，通过复杂的全球尺度计算机模型，研究了与自然和人为产生的气溶胶对气候的影响有关的气候变化（如气候变暖和/或变冷）。该项目还将支持以大气物理学和经典电磁学交叉为标志的跨学科领域的若干研究生的教育和培训。

Airborne dust and smaller aerosol particles play an important role in the earth's climate system by scattering light and longer wavelength (e.g., thermal) radiation passing through the atmosphere. To the extent that their impacts are imperfectly known, they also complicate interpretation of TOA (top of atmosphere) emissions of thermal energy and scattered/reflected light as remotely sensed by satellites. Both aspects are of crucial importance in our efforts to obtain a physically representative, quantitatively accurate understanding of global circulation dynamics and any overlain signals corresponding to climate change. The fact that dusts and aerosols exhibit a myriad of differing sizes, shapes and compositions greatly complicates this problem. The primary objective of this research effort is to explore the feasibility of reducing this complexity via definition and development a more manageable number of "optimal morphological parameters" associated with representative particle types. This project will develop and validate mathematically sophisticated methods for estimating both radiative and light-scattering properties of such particles that are far more efficient in their use of computer time than currently available methods. Once fully tested and documented, associated computer codes will be made widely available to the broader research community for further use and evaluation.The intellectual merit of this effort is centered on improving our knowledge of the optical and radiative properties of airborne dust and aerosols. The resultant findings will have direct applications in the study of the Earth's radiative budget as well as remote sensing of atmospheric properties from both ground-based and orbital platforms. Broader impacts of this research will include increased ability to accurately specify the "direct radiative forcing" (e.g., induced warming and/or cooling) associated with both natural and anthropogenically-generated aerosols on our climate via sophisticated global-scale computer models. This project will also support the education and training of several graduate students in the interdiscplinary area marked by the intersection of atmospheric physics and classical electromagnetics.