Abstract

Aerosols are now recognized as having a significant impact on global climate. Aerosols affect climate directly via scattering and absorption, and indirectly through their effect on cloud properties, generally acting in a manner that counteracts the warming induced by greenhouse gases such as CO₂[Charlson et al., 1992; Fouquart and Isaka, 1992; Penner et al., 1992]. The NASA Langley Research Center's airborne UV DIAL system measures vertical-profile of aerosol scattering at IR, visible, and UV wavelengths at distances up to 25 km above and 12 km below the aircraft. The system has been operated in many different locations around the world during the past decade. The data sets obtained during these field experiments present an opportunity to contribute to the understanding of aerosol optical properties and their distribution, transportation and transformation, all of which bear on how they affect global climate. This paper presents an overview of work being undertaken to analyze and interpret the aerosol data as well as some preliminary results on lidar measurements of aerosols from biomass burning from a variety of locations.

© 1993 Optical Society of America