6.2 Aerosol Optical Thickness Retrievals from Gms5 during Ace-asia

The significance of aerosols in the climate system has been emphasized in many recent studies. However current quantification of aerosol forcing on climate has large uncertainties (IPCC, 2001). To fully understand the complex effect of aerosols requires an intensive measurement and analysis strategy. The emissions of natural and anthropogenic aerosols have been increasing in the past two decades due to the rapid growth of modern industry in the East Asian region. Although the abundance of aerosols in this region might have the largest aerosol forcing on climate, the understanding of aerosol properties, aerosol optical thickness (AOT) distributions and the aerosol radiative effect is poorly quantified because of limited observations and the complexity of aerosol types.