An Aerosol Climatology via Remote Sensing over Metro Manila, Philippines

Abstract. Aerosol particles in Southeast Asia have a complex life cycle and consequently are challenging to characterize. The diverse topography and weather in the region complicate the situation. An aerosol climatology was established based on AERONET data (December 2009 to October 2018) for clear sky days in Metro Manila, Philippines. Aerosol optical depth (AOD) values were highest in August, coinciding with the summer southwest monsoon, due partly to fine particles from urban aerosol particles, including soot. Also, August corresponds to the burning season in insular Southeast Asia when smoke is often transported to Metro Manila. Clustering of AERONET volume size distributions (VSD) resulted in five aerosol particle sources based on the position and magnitude of their peaks in the VSD and the contributions of specific particle species to AOD per cluster based on MERRA-2. The clustering showed that the majority of aerosol particles above Metro Manila were from a clean marine source (58 %), which could be related to AOD values there being relatively smaller than in other cities in the region. The following are the other particle sources over Metro Manila: fine polluted (20 %), mixed polluted (12 %), urban/industrial (5 %), and cloud processing (5 %). Furthermore, MERRA-2 AOD data over Southeast Asia were analyzed using empirical orthogonal functions. Along with AOD fractional compositional contributions and wind regimes, four dominant aerosol particle air masses emerged: two sulfate air masses from East Asia, an organic carbon source from Indonesia, and a sulfate source from the Philippines. Knowing the local and regional aerosol particle air masses that impact Metro Manila is useful in identifying the sources while gaining insight on how aerosol particles are affected by long-range transport and their impact on regional weather.