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On the relationship of aerosol optics to moments of particle size distribution
Author(s) -
de P. Vasconcelos Luis A.,
Macias Edward S.,
White Warren H.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/1998gl900119
Subject(s) - aerosol , method of moments (probability theory) , particle size , distribution (mathematics) , moment (physics) , particle size distribution , statistical physics , physics , particle (ecology) , computational physics , optics , classical mechanics , mathematics , statistics , mathematical analysis , geology , meteorology , paleontology , oceanography , estimator
Particle size distributions are sometimes conveniently described in terms of their integral moments. It is known that the details of a size distribution cannot always be recovered from its moments, but it has also been shown that an aerosol's optical properties can be insensitive to these details. This paper explores the limits of the correspondence between optics and moments, exhibiting size distributions with identical moments but dissimilar optical properties, and dissimilar moments but similar optical properties. The examples involve multimodal size distributions of the type observed in continental ambient air.