INCREASING TREND OF ANGSTROM EXPONENT OVER EAST ASIAN WATERS OBSERVED IN 1998-2005 SEAWIFS DATA SET

Monthly mean data of ${\AA}ngstr{\ddot{o}}m$ exponent and Aerosol optical thickness (AOT) from Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) measurements over the East Asian waters were analyzed. Increasing trend of the satellite-derived ${\AA}ngstr{\ddot{o}}m$ exponent from 1998 to 2004 was found while AOT mean was observed stable during the same period. The trend of ${\AA}ngstr{\ddot{o}}m$ exponent is then interpreted as increase in fraction of small aerosol particles to give quantitative estimates on the variability of aerosols. The mean increase is evaluated to be $4{\sim}5%$ over the 7-year period in terms of the contribution of small particles to the total AOT, or sub-micron fraction (SMF). Possibilities of the observed trend arising from the sensor calibration or algorithm performance are carefully checked, which confirm our belief that this observed trend is rather a real fact than an artifact due to data processing. Another time series of SMF data (2000-2005) estimated from the fine-mode fraction (FMF) of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) supports this observation yet with different calibration system and retrieval algorithms.