• Atmosphere
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.185-191
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• 2015

Ambient measurements of aerosol light absorption (${\sigma}_a$) and scattering coefficients (${\sigma}_s$) were done at Gosan climate observatory during summer 2008 using a 3-wavelength photoacoustic soot spectrometer (PASS). PASS was deployed photoacoustic method for light absorption and integrated nephelometry for light scattering measurements. The ${\sigma}_a$ and ${\sigma}_s$ from PASS were compared with those from co-located aethalometer and nephelometer measurements. The aethalometer measurements of ${\sigma}_a$ correlated reasonably well with photoacoustic measurements, but the slope of the linear fitting line indicated the PASS measurement values of ${\sigma}_a$ were larger by a factor of 1.53. The nephelometer measurement values of ${\sigma}_s$ correlated very well with PASS measurements of ${\sigma}_s$, with a slope of 1.12 and a small offset. Comparing to the aethalometer measurements, the photoacoustic measurements of ${\sigma}_a$ didn't exhibit a significant (i.e., the ratio between aethalometer and PASS increased) change with increasing relative humidity (RH). The ratio of ${\sigma}_s$ between nephelometer and PASS increased with increasing RH, especially when the RH increased beyond 80%. This apparent increase in ${\sigma}_s$ with RH may be due to the contribution of hygroscopic growth of aerosols.