An aerosol climatology of Samoa

An atmospheric monitoring station is operated at Cape Matatula, American Samoa, by the Geophysical Monitoring for Climatic Change program under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A nearly continuous record of condensation nucleus (CN) concentration and multiwavelength aerosol scattering extinction coefficient (_sp) is available from mid-1977 to the present. This report presents the 1977–1983 data. The long-term mean of CN concentration is 274 cm^-3 the long-term mean of _sp (550 nm) is 1.54×10^-5, and no significant long-term, annual, or diurnal trend is apparent in either data record.