Spherical and spheroidal model particles as an error source in aerosol climate forcing and radiance computations: A case study for feldspar aerosols

A case study for feldspar aerosols is conducted to assess the errors introduced by simple model particles in radiance and flux simulations. The spectral radiance field and net flux are computed for a realistic phase function of feldspar aerosols measured in the laboratory at 633 nm. Results are compared to computations with spherical and spheroidal model particles. It is found that the use of spherical model particles introduces large spectral radiance errors at top of atmosphere (TOA) between -6 and 31%. Using a new shape parameterization of spheroids reduces the error range to -1 to 6%. Spherical model particles yield an absolute TOA spectral net flux error of -6.1 mW m(-2) nm(-1). An equiprobable shape distribution of spheroids results in only minor improvements, but the new shape parameterization yields an error of only -0.8 mW m(-2) nm(-1). A variation of the refractive index m reveals that the resulting changes in the TOA spectral net flux are slightly smaller than the error caused by assuming the particles to be spherical. However, the uncertainty of m is commonly considered the major error source in aerosol radiative forcing simulations, whereas the use of spherical model particles is often not seriously questioned. This study implies that this notion needs to be reconsidered. Should the relative spectral net flux errors be representative for the entire spectrum, then the use of spherical model particles may be among the major error sources in broadband flux simulations. The new spheroidal shape parameterization can, however, substantially improve the results.