Estimates of aerosol species scattering characteristics as a function of relative humidity

The absorption of water by ambient aerosols can significantly increase the light scattering coefficient and thereby affect issues such as visibility and climate forcing. Although water absorption by inorganic compounds and mixtures of inorganic compounds can often be modeled with adequate certainty for most applications, modeling water uptake by organic aerosols at present is speculative. In this paper, we present data in the form of f(RH)=bscat(RH)/bscat,dry , where bscat(RH) is the scattering coefficient measured at some relative humidity (RH)>20% and bscat,dry is the scattering coefficient measured at RH <20%. The f(RH) has been measured at Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and at Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. The f(RH) curves obtained from these two sites, which show distinctly different aerosol composition and average RH values, are compared. We also present comparisons between the measured water uptake by ambient aerosol with modeled water uptake by inorganic compounds to estimate the water uptake by organic aerosol.