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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Influence of air mass history on the columnar aerosol properties at Valencia, Spain

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[1] The physical and radiative properties of atmospheric aerosols have been obtained in Valencia (latitude 39.508°, longitude −0.418°, 60 m a. s. l.), a city of the Spanish Mediterranean coast, by the inversion of direct solar irradiance and diffuse sky irradiance measurements made with a CIMEL CE318 system, from January 2002 to July 2005. The data acquired by the CE318 were used to determine the instantaneous values of the aerosol optical depth (AOD), the columnar water vapor content (w) and the Angstrom wavelength exponent (α). The SKYRAD code was used to obtain the size distribution, the asymmetry parameter, the complex refractive index and the single scattering albedo of the aerosols. By dividing the source regions into sectors, and with the help of a simple model that quantified the relative influence of each sector in the final character of the air masses arriving over the measurement site, it was possible to classify and understand the dependence of these physical and radiative properties on the dominant air mass type.