Overview of the NOAA/ESRL Federated Aerosol Network

In order to estimate global aerosol radiative forcing, measurements of aerosol optical properties are made by the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory’s Global Monitoring Division (ESRL/GMD) and their collaborators at 30 monitoring locations around the world. Many of the sites are located in regions influenced by specific aerosol types (e.g., Asian and Saharan desert dust, Asian pollution, biomass burning, etc.). This network of monitoring stations is a shared endeavor of NOAA and many collaborating organizations, including the World Meteorological Organization Global Atmosphere Watch (WMO/GAW) Program, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), several U.S. and foreign universities, and foreign science organizations. The result is a long-term, cooperative program making atmospheric measurements that are directly comparable with those from all the other network stations and with shared data access. The protocols and software developed to support the program facilitate participation in GAW’s atmospheric observation strategy and the sites in the NOAA/ESRL network make up a substantial subset of the GAW aerosol observations. This paper describes the history of the NOAA/ESRL Federated Aerosol Network, details about measurements and operations and some recent findings from the network measurements.