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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-4511</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Fractal Geometry of Aerosol Particles and Its Impact on Atmospheric Optical Properties: Development and Validation of the Fractal Aerosol Cluster Model in a Heavy Haze Event</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Zhenxin</surname>
<given-names>Liu</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Weimin</surname>
<given-names>Li</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Bihui</surname>
<given-names>Zhang</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Xiaolan</surname>
<given-names>Li</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Yuhao</surname>
<given-names>Mao</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Kuan</surname>
<given-names>Zhang</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Xinye</surname>
<given-names>Ma</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Hong</surname>
<given-names>Liao</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Intelligent Atmospheric Environment Monitoring and Carbon–Pollution Co-control/Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Atmospheric Environment and Equipment Technology, School of    Environmental Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (NUIST),  Nanjing 210044, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>National Meteorological Centre, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, 100081, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>Institute of Atmospheric Environment, China Meteorological Administration, Shenyang 110166, P. R.  China/Shenyang Academy of Agricultural and Ecological Meteorology, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences,  Shenyang 110166, P. R. China</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>17</day>
<month>08</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>30</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Liu Zhenxin et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-4511/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-4511/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-4511/egusphere-2026-4511.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-4511/egusphere-2026-4511.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Aerosol particles, as crucial atmospheric components, significantly influence optical properties and play an important role in climate change. Based on Lorenz-Mie&apos;s theory, the optical equivalent radius of aerosol particle affects the atmosphere visibility. Traditional aerosol models, which assume spherical or other geometrically regular particle shapes, significantly deviate from observations in visibility simulations. In this study, the mechanism of random diffusion and aggregation of monomeric particles into fractal geometrical clusters was reproduced. The Fractal Aerosol Cluster Model (FACM) was developed to parameterize the optical and aerodynamic sizes of the fractal geometry of aerosol particles. Sensitivity experiments were conducted to simulate a severe haze event in northern China in November 2018 by coupling FACM into WRF-Chem as the experimental case (EXP) while the control case (CTR) by the original WRF-Chem. The simulated near-ground PM&lt;sub&gt;2.5&lt;/sub&gt; concentrations in both EXP and CTR are similar to the observations (OBS). However, EXP simulated the larger extinction coefficients and lower atmospheric visibility (AV), which is more closely to OBS. The average normalized mean error of AV by EXP to OBS is 163.39 %, compared to 421.62 % by CTR. Thus, considering the fractal geometry of aerosol particles significantly improves simulated AV. Furthermore, a reduction of approximately 60 W&amp;middot;m⁻&amp;sup2; in land surface shortwave radiation in EXP than those by CTR was also confirmed by observations. This study of the optical properties of the fractal aerosol cluster will contribute to future research of atmospheric environment and climate change forcing.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="30"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>National Science and Technology Major Project</funding-source>
<award-id>2025ZD1201601</award-id>
</award-group>
<award-group id="gs2">
<funding-source>Natural Science Foundation of Liaoning Province</funding-source>
<award-id>2024-MS-245</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
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