ACP Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ACP 1680-7324 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acp-12-4935-2012 A parameterization of low visibilities for hazy days in the North China Plain Chen J. 1 Zhao C. S. 2 Ma N. 1 Liu P. F. 1 Göbel T. 2 Hallbauer E. 2 Deng Z. Z. 3 Ran L. 1 Xu W. Y. 1 Liang Z. 1 Liu H. J. 1 Yan P. 4 5 Zhou X. J. 1 4 Wiedensohler A. 2 Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, China Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research, Leipzig, Germany Key Laboratory of Middle Atmosphere and Global Environment Observation, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, China now at: Meteorological Observation Centre, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, China 06 06 2012 12 11 4935 4950 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/12/4935/2012/acp-12-4935-2012.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/12/4935/2012/acp-12-4935-2012.pdf

Visibility degradation is a pervasive and urgent environmental problem in China. The occurrence of low visibility events is frequent in the North China Plain, where the aerosol loading is quite high and aerosols are strongly hygroscopic. A parameterization of light extinction (<i>K</i><sub>ex</sub>) for low visibilities on hazy days is proposed in this paper, based on visibility, relative humidity (RH), aerosol hygroscopic growth factors and particle number size distributions measured during the Haze in China (HaChi) Project. Observational results show that a high aerosol volume concentration is responsible for low visibility at RH <90%; while for RH >90%, decrease of visibility is mainly influenced by the increase of RH. The parameterization of <i>K</i><sub>ex</sub> is developed on the basis of aerosol volume concentrations and RH, taking into accounts the sensitivity of visibility to the two factors and the availability of corresponding data. The extinction coefficients calculated with the parameterization schemes agree well with the directly measured values.

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