Aerosol Optical Depth characteristics in Yinchuan area

Sand dust aerosol is the main component of aerosol in troposphere atmosphere of East Asia, which can produce the extensive influence on the ecosystem, atmosphere environment and atmosphere chemistry through intensive sand dust weather process. For investigation of the aerosol optical depth (AOD) and its temporal-spatial evolution over this area, a series of observation experiments were carried out by a sun photometer CE-318 located at Beifang University of Nationality(106 degrees E, 38 degrees 29'N), Yinchuan Ningxia province of China from September 2012 to April 2013 and many direct solar radiation datum were obtained. The experiments results were analyzed in detail and some conclusions are obtained as follows: (1) For daily evolution of AOD, the variation trend are divided into four types:. the AOD values are relatively steady in whole day;. the AOD values increase from morning to afternoon;. the AOD values are greater at noon than that in the morning and afternoon;. there is a peak in the variation trends of AOD from 9: 00 similar to 12: 00 in the morning, but it is small at other time. (2) For month evolution, the minimum AOD average value appears in September and the maximum one appears in April. (3) For the seasonal changes trend, the average AOD values in the April are bigger than that in the autumn. (4) In addition, during the observation period, one dust weather process was observed and the change characteristic of AOD of dust aerosol was obtained and analyzed.