Climate-relevant aerosol parameters of South-East-Asian forest fire haze

A measurement campaign in Malaysia with combined measurements of spectral aerosol optical thickness, sky brightness and shortwave down-welling fluxes has been carried out during the 1997 forest fire in South-East Asia. The main measured parameters have been used for the derivation of the main climate-relevant aerosol parameters by the Coupled inversion radiation transfer, (CIRATRA) approach (Wendisch and von Hoyningen-Huene, 1994, Atmospheric Environment 28, 785–795). With this approach aerosol phase functions p(θ) with asymmetry parameters g=0.69±0.02, real part of refractive index m (average of m=1.45) and single scattering albedo ωo=0.90… 0.91±0.02 of the haze have been determined. The optical thickness conditions of the haze, found in this time can be roughly characterized by the Angström parameters α=0.79±0.11 and β=δA(λ=1.0 μm)=0.35… 2.3