Atmos. Meas. Tech. Discuss., doi:10.5194/amt-2016-294, 2016 Manuscript under review for journal Atmos. Meas. Tech. Published: 8 December 2016 c Author(s) 2016. CC-BY 3.0 License. On Aethalometer measurement uncertainties and multiple scattering enhancement in the Arctic John Backman1, Lauren Schmeisser2,*, Aki Virkkula1, John A. Ogren2,3, Eija Asmi1, Sandra Starkweather2,3, Sangeeta Sharma4, Konstantinos Eleftheriadis5, Taneil Uttal3, Anne Jefferson2, 5 Michael Bergin6, Alexander Makshtas7 1Finnish Meteorological Institute, Atmospheric Composition Research, Helsinki, Finland 2University of Colorado, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, Boulder, USA 3National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Earth System Research Laboratory, 10 Boulder, USA 4Environment and Climate Change Canada, Climate Research Division, Downsview, Canada 5Institute of Nuclear and Radiological Science & Technology, Energy & Safety, Environmental Radioactivity Laboratory, NCSR "Demokritos", Athens, Greece 6Duke University, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Durham, USA 15 7Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring, Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia *Now at University of Washington, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Seattle, USA Correspondence to: John Backman (
[email protected]) Abstract. Several types of filter-based instruments are used to estimate aerosol light absorption 20 coefficients. Two significant results are presented based on Aethalometer measurements at six Arctic station from 2012–2014. First, an alternative method of post-processing the Aethalometer data is presented which reduces measurement noise and lowers the detection limit of the instrument more effectively than boxcar averaging. The biggest benefit of this approach can be achieved if instrument drift is minimized. Moreover, by using an attenuation threshold criterion for data post-processing, the 25 relative uncertainty from the electronic noise the instrument is kept constant.