Identification of Aerosol Sources Based on the Aerosol Optical Properties in Kuching, Sarawak

Anthropogenic and natural aerosols are important atmospheric constituents that significantly contribute to the Earth’s radiation budget but remain uncertainties due to the poor understanding of aerosol properties and its direct effects on scattering and absoprtion of solar radiation. As the optical properties of aerosol particles were different for each particular time due to the short lifetime of the aerosols and basically could be linked closely by the sources of the aerosol. Different types of aerosols, representing biomass burning, urban or industrial pollution, maritime aerosols and dust particles will give different characterization and classification of aerosol properties itself. The aim of the study is to identify the sources of aerosol based on aerosol optical properties. Two parameters were used for aerosol analysis which are Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) at wavelenght 440nm and Angstrom exponent derived from a multispectral log linear. The data used in this study were obtained from Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET). To identify the sources of aerosol, the aerosol optical properties will be analyzed based on the characterization of aerosols which values of size radii close to zero will indicate coarse mode aerosols. Basically, these types of aerosol originated from sea spray and desert dust. Values of size radii for above 1.5 correspond to presence of fine-mode particles that originally comes from smoke or urban aerosols.The characterization had been done using scatter plot graph, then the types of aerosol will be classified based on dependency of AOD and Angstrom epxonent.After the characterization process, the aerosol will be classified based on dependency of AOT and Angstrom exponent also known as size radii. High density of AOD valuesand low Angstrom exponent values will corresponds to dust aerosols. High AOD density and high Angstrom exponent will indicate that the aerosol originated from anthropogenic sources.

کلیدواژه ها:

Optical properties ، Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) ، Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) ، Angstrom exponent