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Using the regional climate model (RegCM4), optical depth and shortwave (SW) direct radiative forcing (DRF) of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) are investigated over China during the summer period. The biogenic emission and gas phase chemistry modules are updated to investigate α-pinene and limonene emissions and their reactions with atmosphere oxidants. The VBS (volatility basis set) model is implemented into RegCM4 to illustrate gas-particle partition process. During the study period (July 2006), the mean surface concentration and column burden of anthropogenic SOA (ASOA) over China are 1.90 µg m −3 and 4.50 mg m −3 , respectively. The ones of biogenic SOA (BSOA) are 2.00 and 3.35 mg m −3 , respectively. Monthly mean calculated optical depths (at 550 nm) are 0.020 and 0.013 for ASOA and BSOA. The domain averaged simulated ASOA direct SW radiative forcing at surface and at the top of atmosphere (TOA) are −1.21 and −0.66 W m −2 . For BSOA, the surface and TOA SW DRF are −0.75 and −0.46 W m −2 . The errors induced by applying optical parameters of primary organic aerosol for SOA DRF modelling are also accessed. For DRF at TOA, it will increase by 156 and 161% for ASOA and BSOA. Though the optical parameters applied in this study are still rough, especially for intermediate SOA, this is a first step to apply explicit optical parameters for both ASOA and BSOA in DRF estimation. Keywords: optical, refractive indices, primary organic aerosol, indirect (Published: 5 May 2015) Citation: Tellus B 2015, 67, 24634, http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/tellusb.v67.24634