Constraining the vertical profiles of aerosol component and heating rate over east Asia through assimilating CALIOP observations
- 1Institute of Atmospheric Physics (Beijing, China)
- 2Chinese Academy of Sciences (Beijing, China)
Abstract
The vertical distribution of distinct aerosol components fundamentally governs atmospheric shortwave heating rates and radiative effects. However, traditional data assimilation (DA) methods typically rely on total aerosol optical thickness (AOT) or extinction, which fails to constrain the specific aerosol composition and often leads to the misallocation of aerosol between scattering and absorbing species. To address this limitation, we develop a component-resolved data assimilation system based on the local ensemble transform Kalman filter (LETKF) with spatial and observational constraints within the WRF-Chem model. This novel system assimilates CALIOP-MODIS synergistic retrievals of species-specific extinction profiles (dust, sea salt, black carbon, and water-soluble aerosols) to explicitly optimize the three-dimensional distributions of individual components over East Asia. Results demonstrate that this DA system successfully reconstructs the complex vertical layering of multi-component aerosols. Notably, it effectively corrects severe underestimations of elevated black carbon (BC) plumes, capturing persistent free-tropospheric BC layers over South Asia that traditional models typically miss. Independent validations against ground-based AERONET and AD-Net lidar observations confirm significant improvements not only in total AOT and extinction but also in the single scattering albedo (SSA). By independently adjusting the mass of scattering and absorbing species, the system corrects local biases in aerosol optical properties. Consequently, the optimized component-specific profiles profoundly affect the atmospheric shortwave radiative heating. The elevated BC plumes induce a pronounced mid-tropospheric warming accompanied by a reduction in lower-tropospheric heating due to the attenuation of downward solar radiation. This study highlights the importance of component-specific vertical constraints for accurately assessing aerosol-induced atmospheric heating and its vertical structure.
Versions
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BibTeX
@article{cheng2026constraining,
title = {{Constraining the vertical profiles of aerosol component and heating rate over east Asia through assimilating CALIOP observations}},
author = {Yueming Cheng and Tie Dai and Daisuke Goto and Keiya Yumimoto and Tomoaki Nishizawa and Rei Kudo and Min Zhao and Akiko Higurashi and Yoshitaka Jin and Atsushi Shimizu and Haoran Peng and Guangyu Shi and Teruyuki Nakajima},
journal = {Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.5194/acp-26-14671-2026},
url = {https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/26/14671/2026/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Constraining the vertical profiles of aerosol component and heating rate over east Asia through assimilating CALIOP observations
AU - Yueming Cheng
AU - Tie Dai
AU - Daisuke Goto
AU - Keiya Yumimoto
AU - Tomoaki Nishizawa
AU - Rei Kudo
AU - Min Zhao
AU - Akiko Higurashi
AU - Yoshitaka Jin
AU - Atsushi Shimizu
AU - Haoran Peng
AU - Guangyu Shi
AU - Teruyuki Nakajima
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/19
JO - Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
DO - 10.5194/acp-26-14671-2026
UR - https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/26/14671/2026/
AB - The vertical distribution of distinct aerosol components fundamentally governs atmospheric shortwave heating rates and radiative effects. However, traditional data assimilation (DA) methods typically rely on total aerosol optical thickness (AOT) or extinction, which fails to constrain the specific aerosol composition and often leads to the misallocation of aerosol between scattering and absorbing species. To address this limitation, we develop a component-resolved data assimilation system based on the local ensemble transform Kalman filter (LETKF) with spatial and observational constraints within the WRF-Chem model. This novel system assimilates CALIOP-MODIS synergistic retrievals of species-specific extinction profiles (dust, sea salt, black carbon, and water-soluble aerosols) to explicitly optimize the three-dimensional distributions of individual components over East Asia. Results demonstrate that this DA system successfully reconstructs the complex vertical layering of multi-component aerosols. Notably, it effectively corrects severe underestimations of elevated black carbon (BC) plumes, capturing persistent free-tropospheric BC layers over South Asia that traditional models typically miss. Independent validations against ground-based AERONET and AD-Net lidar observations confirm significant improvements not only in total AOT and extinction but also in the single scattering albedo (SSA). By independently adjusting the mass of scattering and absorbing species, the system corrects local biases in aerosol optical properties. Consequently, the optimized component-specific profiles profoundly affect the atmospheric shortwave radiative heating. The elevated BC plumes induce a pronounced mid-tropospheric warming accompanied by a reduction in lower-tropospheric heating due to the attenuation of downward solar radiation. This study highlights the importance of component-specific vertical constraints for accurately assessing aerosol-induced atmospheric heating and its vertical structure.
SN - 1680-7324
ER -