Aerosol optical depth in the European Brewer Network

Abstract

Aerosols play an important role in key atmospheric processes and feature high spatial and temporal variabilities. This has motivated scientific interest in the development of networks capable of measuring aerosol properties over large geographical areas in near-real time. In this work we present and discuss results of an aerosol optical depth (AOD) algorithm applied to instruments of the European Brewer Network. This network is comprised of close to 50 Brewer spectrophotometers, mostly located in Europe and adjacent areas, although instruments operating at, for example, South America and Australia are also members. Although we only show results for instruments calibrated by the Regional Brewer Calibration Center for Europe, the implementation of the AOD algorithm described is intended to be used by the whole network in the future. Using data from the Brewer intercomparison campaigns in the years 2013 and 2015, and the period in between, plus comparisons with Cimel sun photometers and UVPFR instruments, we check the precision, stability, and uncertainty of the Brewer AOD in the ultraviolet range from 300 to 320 nm. Our results show a precision better than 0.01, an uncertainty of less than 0.05, and, for well-maintained instruments, a stability similar to that of the ozone measurements. We also discuss future improvements to our algorithm with respect to the input data, their processing, and the characterization of the Brewer instruments for the measurement of AOD.