Mount Pinatubo and Atmospheric Extinction at Mount John University Observatory 1987-94

We investigate the climatic effects of volcanic eruptions spanning from Mt.\ Pinatubo-sized events to super-volcanoes. The study is based on ensemble simulations in the Community Earth System Model Version 2 (CESM2) climate model using the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model Version 6 (WACCM6) atmosphere model. Our analysis focuses on the impact of different \ce{SO2}-amount injections on stratospheric aerosol optical depth (AOD), effective radiative forcing (RF), and glo...

Spectra of astronomical targets acquired from ground-based instruments are affected by the atmospheric transmission. The authors and their institutes are developing a web-based service, TAPAS (Transmissions of the AtmosPhere for AStromomical data). This service, freely available, is developed and maintained within the atmospheric ETHER data center. TAPAS computes the atmospheric transmission in the line-of-sight to the target indicated by the user. The user files a request in...

A significant and growing portion of systematic error on a number of fundamental parameters in astrophysics and cosmology is due to uncertainties from absolute photometric and flux standards. A path toward achieving major reduction in such uncertainties may be provided by satellite-mounted light sources, resulting in improvement in the ability to precisely characterize atmospheric extinction, and thus helping to usher in the coming generation of precision results in astronomy...

The work contains the description of two narrow IR-bands observational data of total lunar eclipse of March, 3, 2007, one- and two-dimensional procedures of radiative transfer equation solution. The results of the procedure are the extinction values for atmospheric aerosol and water vapor at different altitudes in the troposphere along the Earth's terminator crossing North America, Arctic, Siberia and South-Eastern Asia. The altitude range and possible latitude and altitude r...

Methods to map artificial night sky brightness and stellar visibility across large territories or their distribution over the entire sky at any site are based on the computation of the propagation of light pollution with Garstang models, a simplified solution of the radiative transfer problem in the atmosphere which allows a fast computation by reducing it to a ray-tracing approach. We present here up-to-date Extended Garstang Models (EGM) which provide a more general numeric...

On the basis of measurements of the V-band sky brightness obtained at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in December 2006 and December 2008 we confirm the functional form of the basic model of Garstang (1989, 1991). At high zenith angles we measure an enhancement of a factor of two over Garstang's later model when there is no marine cloud layer over La Serena/Coquimbo. No corresponding enhancement is found in the B-band.

The idea of using stellar photometry for atmospheric monitoring for optical experiments in high-energy astrophysics is seemingly straightforward, but reaching high precision of the order of 0.01 in the determination of the vertical aerosol optical depth (VAOD) has proven difficult. Wide-field photometry over a large span of altitudes allows a fast determination of VAOD independently of the absolute calibration of the system, while providing this calibration as a useful by-pro...

We present measurements of the optical broadband atmospheric extinction coefficients and the night sky brightness at the Xuyi Observational Station of Purple Mountain Observatory (PMO). The measurements are based on CCD imaging data taken in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey g, r and i bands with the Xuyi 1.04/1.20m Schmidt Telescope for the Xuyi Schmidt Telescope Photometric Survey of the Galactic Anti-center (XSTPS-GAC), the photometric part of the Digital Sky Survey of the Gala...

We analyze the global temperature change due to the Mt. Pinatubo eruption using a simple two-layer model of the atmosphere and surface to obtain results consistent with satellite data. Through analytic and numerical analysis we find a principal characteristic response time of 5 to 8 months and a climate sensitivity of 0.17 to 0.20 C/(W/m^2), corresponding to a negative instantaneous feedback. Our solutions were fit to the data, reproducing the results of a one-box model, and ...

The proliferation of near-infrared (1--5 $\mu$m) photometric systems over the last 30 years has made the comparison of photometric results difficult. In an effort to standardize infrared filters in use, the Mauna Kea Observatories near-infrared filter set has been promoted among instrument groups through combined filter production runs. The characteristics of this filter set are summarized, and some aspects of the filter wavelength definitions, the flux density for zero magni...