Effect of instrumental particle sizing resolution on the modelling of aerosol radiative parameters

A more realistic estimation of the scattering and hemispheric backscattering coefficients, σ sp and σ bsp, and their respective optical cross section, C sca and C bk, of aerosol particles is presented on the basis of the exact resolution of the width of the size bins of the particle counter instruments when size distribution measurements are used, and, with the exact optical detector instruments ability. The scattering and hemispheric backscattering cross sections, C sca and C bk, of the particles are averaged over the full size bins of the particle counter instrument, while these quantities are usually estimated only on the value of the mean geometric diameter of each size bin. Six instruments, the APS, ASASP-X, DMPS, FSSP-100, ELPI, and SMPS frequently used in particle size distribution measurements are reviewed, for spherical sea-salt particles at a wavelength λ=0.55 μm. The comparison using the conventional geometric mean diameter versus the use of the full size bin leads to large amount of errors for the optical cross section with non-negligible effects on their respective optical coefficients. The maximal accuracy expected for these optical quantities depend on the particle diameter as well as on the channel width of the instruments, and are also function of the angular detector probe used to measure them.