Effect of Size Parameter and Refractive Index on Atmospheric Aerosol Profiles Retrieved from Bistatic Lidar Measurements

1988 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-38
Author(s):  
P. C. S. Devara ◽  
P. Ernest Raj ◽  
A. L. Londhe
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 4755-4771
Author(s):  
William G. K. McLean ◽  
Guangliang Fu ◽  
Sharon P. Burton ◽  
Otto P. Hasekamp

Abstract. This study presents an investigation of aerosol microphysical retrievals from high spectral resolution lidar (HSRL) measurements. Firstly, retrievals are presented for synthetically generated lidar measurements, followed by an application of the retrieval algorithm to real lidar measurements. Here, we perform the investigation for an aerosol state vector that is typically used in multi-angle polarimeter (MAP) retrievals, so that the results can be interpreted in relation to a potential combination of lidar and MAP measurements. These state vectors correspond to a bimodal size distribution, where column number, effective radius, and effective variance of both modes are treated as fit parameters, alongside the complex refractive index and particle shape. The focus is primarily on a lidar configuration based on that of the High Spectral Resolution Lidar-2 (HSRL-2), which participated in the ACEPOL (Aerosol Characterization from Polarimeter and Lidar) campaign, a combined project between NASA and SRON (Netherlands Institute for Space Research). The measurement campaign took place between October and November 2017, over the western region of the USA. Six different instruments were mounted on the aeroplane: four MAPs and two lidar instruments, HSRL-2 and the Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL). Most of the flights were carried out over land, passing over scenes with a low aerosol load. One of the flights passed over a prescribed forest fire in Arizona on 9 November, with a relatively higher aerosol optical depth (AOD), and it is the data from this flight that are focussed on in this study. A retrieval of the aerosol microphysical properties of the smoke plume mixture was attempted with the data from HSRL-2 and compared with a retrieval from the MAPs carried out in previous work pertaining to the ACEPOL data. The synthetic HSRL-2 retrievals resulted for the fine mode in a mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.038 (0.025) µm for the effective radius (with a mean truth value of 0.195 µm), 0.052 (0.037) for the real refractive index, 0.010 (7.20×10-3) for the imaginary part of the refractive index, 0.109 (0.071) for the spherical fraction, and 0.054 (0.039) for the AOD at 532 nm, where the retrievals inside brackets indicate the MAE for noise-free retrievals. For the coarse mode, we find the MAE is 0.459 (0.254) µm for the effective radius (with a mean truth value of 1.970 µm), 0.085 (0.075) for the real refractive index, 2.06×10-4 (1.90×10-4) for the imaginary component, 0.120 (0.090) for the spherical fraction, and 0.051 (0.039) for the AOD. A study of the sensitivity of retrievals to the choice of prior and first guess showed that, on average, the retrieval errors increase when the prior deviates too much from the truth value. These experiments revealed that the measurements primarily contain information on the size and shape of the aerosol, along with the column number. Some information on the real component of the refractive index is also present, with the measurements providing little on absorption or on the effective variance of the aerosol distribution, as both of these were shown to depend heavily on the choice of prior. Retrievals using the HSRL-2 smoke-plume data yielded, for the fine mode, an effective radius of 0.107 µm, a real refractive index of 1.561, an imaginary component of refractive index of 0.010, a spherical fraction of 0.719, and an AOD at 532 nm of 0.505. Additionally, the single-scattering albedo (SSA) from the HSRL-2 retrievals was 0.940. Overall, these results are in good agreement with those from the Spectropolarimeter for Planetary Exploration (SPEX) and Research Scanning Polarimeter (RSP) retrievals.


1976 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 349-352
Author(s):  
A. J. Patitsas ◽  
F. Robillard ◽  
B. H. Kaye

Simple relations have been obtained, by numerical methods, between the diameter D of a spherical void (bubble) in a conducting medium of a given refractive index and the angular positions of the extrema of the Mie scattering intensities from the voids. The extrema are counted from the forward direction. These relations allow the determination of the positions of the extrema for a given diameter, or the reverse, without computational aids. The real part of the refractive index was varied from 1.25 to 15.00 and the imaginary part from 0.0 to 22.50. The size parameter α = πD/λ was varied in all cases from 4.00 to 24.00. The variable λ represents the wavelength of the incident radiation. These findings could thus be related to the scattering of microwaves by bubbles in water. Similar relations have also been obtained regarding the scattering of scalar waves by spherical voids. This corresponds to scattering of Schrödinger waves from complex spherical barrier potentials.


2018 ◽  
Vol 176 ◽  
pp. 05055 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Samoilova ◽  
M. Sviridenkov ◽  
I. Penner ◽  
G. Kokhanenko ◽  
Yu. Balin

Regular lidar measurements of the vertical distribution of aerosol optical parameters are carried out in Tomsk (56°N, 85°E) since April, 2011. We present the results of retrieval of microphysical characteristics from the data of measurements by means of Raman lidar in 2013. Section 2 is devoted to the theoretical aspects of retrieving the particle size distribution function U(r) (SDF) assuming a known complex refractive index m (CRI). It is shown that the coarse fraction cannot be retrieved unambiguously. When estimating U(r) and m together (section 3), the retrieved refractive index is non-linearly related to the optical coefficients and the distribution function, which leads to appearance of different, including false values of m. The corresponding U(r) differs only slightly, so the inaccuracy in m does not essentially affect the retrieval of the distribution function.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosalie H. Shepherd ◽  
Martin D. King ◽  
Amelia Marks ◽  
Neil Brough ◽  
Andrew D. Ward

Abstract. Optical trapping combined with Mie spectroscopy is a new technique used to record the refractive index of insoluble organic material extracted from atmospheric aerosol samples over a wide wavelength range with sub-nanometer resolution. The refractive index of the insoluble organic extracts was shown to follow a Cauchy equation between 460 to 700 nm for organic aerosol extracts collected from urban (London) and remote (Antarctica) locations. Cauchy coefficients for the remote sample were for the Austral summer and gave the Cauchy coefficients to be A = 1.467 and B = 1000 nm2 with a real refractive index of 1.489 at a wavelength of 589 nm. Cauchy coefficients for the urban samples varied with season, with extracts collected during summer having Cauchy coefficients of A = 1.465±0.005 and B = 4625±1200 nm2 with a representative real refractive index of 1.478 at a wavelength of 589 nm, whilst samples extracted during autumn had larger Cauchy coefficients of A=1.505 and B = 600 nm2 with a representative real refractive index of 1.522 at a wavelength of 589 nm. The refractive index of absorbing aerosol was also recorded. The technique applied in the presented study allowed the absorption Ångstrom exponent to be determined for wood smoke and humic acid aerosol extract. Typical values of the Cauchy coefficient for the wood smoke aerosol extract were A = 1.541±0.03 and B = 14800±2900 nm2 resulting in a real refractive index of 1.584±0.007 at a wavelength of 589 nm and an absorption Ångstrom exponent of 7.0. The measured values of refractive index compare well with previous monochromatic or very small wavelength range measurements of refractive index. A one-dimensional radiative-transfer calculation of the top of the atmosphere albedo was applied to model an atmosphere containing a 3 km thick layer of aerosol comprising of pure water, insoluble organic aerosol or an aerosol consisting of an aqueous core-with an insoluble organic shell. The calculation demonstrated that the top of the atmosphere albedo increases by 0.01 to 0.04 for pure organic particles relative to water particles of the same size and the top of the atmosphere albedo increases by 0.03 for aqueous core-shell particles as volume fraction of the shell material increases by 25 percent.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (8) ◽  
pp. 5235-5252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosalie H. Shepherd ◽  
Martin D. King ◽  
Amelia A. Marks ◽  
Neil Brough ◽  
Andrew D. Ward

Abstract. Optical trapping combined with Mie spectroscopy is a new technique used to record the refractive index of insoluble organic material extracted from atmospheric aerosol samples over a wide wavelength range. The refractive index of the insoluble organic extracts was shown to follow a Cauchy equation between 460 and 700 nm for organic aerosol extracts collected from urban (London) and remote (Antarctica) locations. Cauchy coefficients for the remote sample were for the Austral summer and gave the Cauchy coefficients of A = 1.467 and B = 1000 nm2 with a real refractive index of 1.489 at a wavelength of 589 nm. Cauchy coefficients for the urban samples varied with season, with extracts collected during summer having Cauchy coefficients of A=1.465±0.005 and B=4625±1200 nm2 with a representative real refractive index of 1.478 at a wavelength of 589 nm, whilst samples extracted during autumn had larger Cauchy coefficients of A = 1.505 and B = 600 nm2 with a representative real refractive index of 1.522 at a wavelength of 589 nm. The refractive index of absorbing aerosol was also recorded. The absorption Ångström exponent was determined for woodsmoke and humic acid aerosol extract. Typical values of the Cauchy coefficient for the woodsmoke aerosol extract were A=1.541±0.03 and B=14800±2900 nm2, resulting in a real refractive index of 1.584 ± 0.007 at a wavelength of 589 nm and an absorption Ångström exponent of 8.0. The measured values of refractive index compare well with previous monochromatic or very small wavelength range measurements of refractive index. In general, the real component of the refractive index increases from remote to urban to woodsmoke. A one-dimensional radiative-transfer calculation of the top-of-the-atmosphere albedo was applied to model an atmosphere containing a 3 km thick layer of aerosol comprising pure water, pure insoluble organic aerosol, or an aerosol consisting of an aqueous core with an insoluble organic shell. The calculation demonstrated that the top-of-the-atmosphere albedo increases by 0.01 to 0.04 for pure organic particles relative to water particles of the same size and that the top-of-the-atmosphere albedo increases by 0.03 for aqueous core-shell particles as volume fraction of the shell material increases to 25 %.


2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 3059-3088 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Veselovskii ◽  
D. N. Whiteman ◽  
M. Korenskiy ◽  
A. Kolgotin ◽  
O. Dubovik ◽  
...  

Abstract. The results of application of the linear estimation technique to multiwavelength Raman lidar measurements performed during the summer of 2011 in Greenbelt, MD, USA are presented. We demonstrate that multiwavelength lidars are capable not only of providing vertical profiles of particle properties but also of revealing the spatio-temporal evolution of aerosol features. The night-time 3β + 1α lidar measurements on 21 and 22 July were inverted to spatio-temporal distributions of particle microphysical parameters, such as volume, number density, effective radius and the complex refractive index. The particle volume and number density show strong variation during the night while the effective radius remains approximately constant. The real part of the refractive index demonstrates a slight decreasing tendency in a region of enhanced extinction coefficient. The linear estimation retrievals are stable and provide 2 min resolution time series of particle parameters at different heights. AERONET observations are compared with multiwavelength lidar retrievals showing good agreement.


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