Quantification of the impact of aerosol on broadband solar radiation in North China

PM2.5 plays a key role in the solar radiation budget and air quality assessments, but observations and historical data are relatively rare for Beijing. Based on the synchronous monitoring of PM2.5 and broadband solar radiation (R(s)), a logarithmic function was developed to describe the quantitative relationship between these parameters. This empirical parameterization was employed to calculate R(sn) from PM2.5 with normalized mean bias (NMB) −0.09 and calculate PM2.5 concentration from R(sn) with NMB −0.12. Our results indicate that this parameterization provides an efficient and straightforward method for estimating PM2.5 from R(s) or R(s) from PM2.5.