297— Modeling Optical Extinction Spectra of Polystyrene Beads in Water

To model the global climate, it is critical to understand how light interacts with particles in the atmosphere. Extinction spectra have been measured and simulated for a model system consisting of polystyrene beads in water. These beads have sizes comparable to atmospheric aerosols and can be dyed to mimic the properties of soot. Once the simulation is validated by comparing optimized simulation parameters to nominal particle properties, it can be used to study soot aerosols. We show that our simulation program can return reasonable values for the size and optical properties of this model system.