Optical feedback cavity ring-down spectroscopy (OF-CRDS) using a continuous wave distributed feedback diode laser at 1650 nm has been used to measure extinction of light by samples of monodisperse spherical aerosol particles < 1 mu m in diameter. The OF-CRDS method allows measurements of low levels of extinction of incident light to be made at repetition rates of 1 kHz or greater. A statistical model is proposed to describe the linear relationship between the extinction coefficient (alpha) and its variance (Var(alpha). Application of this model to experimental measurements of Var(alpha) for a range of alpha values typically below similar to 1 x 10(-6) cm(-1) allows extinction cross-sections for the aerosol particles to be obtained without need for knowledge of the particle number density. Samples of polystyrene spheres with diameters of 400, 500, 600, and 700 nm were used to test the model by comparing extinction cross-sections determined from the experiment with the predictions of Mie theory calculations. Fitting of ring-down decay traces exhibiting amplitude noise to extract cavity ring-down times introduces additional quadratic and higher order polynomial dependencies of the variance that become significant for larger particle number densities and thus extinction coefficients (typically for alpha > 1 x 10(-6) cm(-1) under our experimental conditions). Aggregation of particles at larger number densities is suggested as a further source of variance in the measurements. Extinction cross-sections are severely underestimated if the measurements are made too rapidly to sample uncorrelated distributions of particle numbers and positions.