Observed aerosol optical depth and angstrom exponent in urban area of Nanjing, China

Aerosol optical properties at Gulou station in Nanjing, China were measured and analyzed from April 2011 to April 2012. The annual median of aerosol optical depth (hereafter called as AOD) at 440 nm was 0.73 and the corresponding annual median of angstrom exponent (hereafter called as AE) between 440 nm and 870 nm was 1.28. The monthly median of AOD(440nm) presented a seasonal variation, which revealed a maximum in August (1.22) and a minimum in February (0.51), while the monthly median of AE showed a minimum in May (0.79) and a maximum in December (1.42). AOD and AE accumulated mainly between 0.40-0.90 (68%) and 1.20-1.50 (68%) respectively in Nanjing. The observation data showed that high AODs (>1.00) were clustered in the fine mode growth wing and the coarse mode. Comparison was made between two typical cases under different weather conditions and the results showed that Nanjing is influenced by the dust aerosol from Northwest China and Mongolia under dust weather in spring and the anthropogenic aerosol from local emission and surrounding industrialization region under haze weather. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.