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(theta) with asymmetry parameters g = 0.69 +/- 0.02, real part of refractive index m (average of m = 1.45) and single scattering albedo omega(o) = 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 Angstrom parameters alpha = 0.79 +/- 0.11 and beta = gamma(A)(lambda = 1.0 mu m) = 0.35... 2.3. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.