Universal Spectrum for Atmospheric Suspended Particulates: Comparison with Observations, Data Set IV - Rain Formation in Warm Clouds: General Systems Theory - page 92

Fig. 6.2 Average aerosol size spectrum for SAFARI 2000 CV-580 aerosol size spectra and com-
parison with model prediction. Error bars indicate one standard deviation on either side of the
mean
Conclusion
There is a close agreement between the model-predicted and the observed aero-
sol size distributions for the two aerosol data sets (SAFARI 2000 and World Data
Center) used in the study. SAFARI 2000 aerosol size distributions reported by
Haywood et al. ( 2003 ) also show similar shape for the distributions.
The distribution of atmospheric aerosols is not only determined by turbulence
but also by dry and wet chemistry, sedimentation, gas to particle conversion, co-
agulation, (fractal) variability at the surface, among others. However, at any instant,
the mass (and therefore the radius for homogeneous aerosols) size distribution of
atmospheric suspensions (aerosols) is directly related to the wind velocity (eddy
energy) spectrum, which is shown to be universal (scale independent). The source
for aerosols in the fine mode (less than 1 μm) and coarse mode (greater than 1 μm)
are different and may account for the observed good fit of the observed radius size
spectrum mostly for the fine aerosol mode only.