Spatio-temporal evolution of long-range transported mineral desert dust properties over rural and urban sites in Central Europe.

An exceptionally strong and very fast (120h) mineral dust inflow from North Africa to Poland was predicted by NMMB/BSC-Dust and NAAPS models on 10-11 June 2019. Simultaneous measurements with two complex lidar systems at the EARLINET-ACTRIS urban site in Warsaw (Central Poland) and the PolWET peatland site in Rzecin (Western Poland) captured the evolution of this dust event. The advected air masses had different source areas in North Africa, they were reaching each station via independent pathways, and thus, were unlikely mixed with each other. The excellent capabilities of the next generation PollyXT lidar and the mobile EMORAL lidar allowed for the derivation of full datasets of aerosol optical properties profiles that enabled comparative study of the advected dust properties evolution. Within a mere 350 km distance between Warsaw and Rzecin, distinctly different dust properties were measured, respectively: dry mineral dust composed mainly of coarse mode dust particles (50 ± 5 % of the total particle backscattering profile) versus the wet mineral dust dominated by fine dust particles (58 ± 4 %). A new parameter fine-to-coarse dust ratio (FCDR) is proposed to describe more intuitively mineral dust composition.

Retrieval of aerosol extinction coefficient profiles from Raman lidar data by inversion method.

We regard the problem of differentiation occurring in the retrieval of aerosol extinction coefficient profiles from inelastic Raman lidar signals by searching for a stable solution of the resulting Volterra integral equation. An algorithm based on a projection method and iterative regularization together with the L-curve method has been performed on synthetic and measured lidar signals. A strategy to choose a suitable range for the integration within the framework of the retrieval of optical properties is proposed here for the first time to our knowledge. The Monte Carlo procedure has been adapted to treat the uncertainty in the retrieval of extinction coefficients.

III-posed retrieval of aerosol extinction coefficient profiles from Raman lidar data by regularization.

In the analysis of Raman lidar measurements of aerosol extinction, it is necessary to calculate the derivative of the logarithm of the ratio between the atmospheric number density and the range-corrected lidar-received power. The statistical fluctuations of the Raman signal can produce large fluctuations in the derivative and thus in the aerosol extinction profile. To overcome this difficult situation we discuss three methods: Tikhonov regularization, variational, and the sliding best-fit (SBF). Three methods are performed on the profiles taken from the European Aerosol Research Lidar Network lidar database simulated at the Raman shifted wavelengths of 387 and 607 nm associated with the emitted signals at 355 and 532 nm. Our results show that the SBF method does not deliver good results for low fluctuation in the profile. However, Tikhonov regularization and the variational method yield very good aerosol extinction coefficient profiles for our examples. With regard to, e.g., the 532 nm wavelength, the L2 errors of the aerosol extinction coefficient profile by using the SBF, Tikhonov, and variational methods with respect to synthetic noisy data are 0.0015(0.0024), 0.00049(0.00086), and 0.00048(0.00082), respectively. Moreover, the L2 errors by using the Tikhonov and variational methods with respect to a more realistic noisy profile are 0.0014(0.0016) and 0.0012(0.0016), respectively. In both cases the L2 error given in parentheses concerns the second example.

Microphysical aerosol parameters from multiwavelength lidar.

The hybrid regularization technique developed at the Institute of Mathematics of Potsdam University (IMP) is used to derive microphysical properties such as effective radius, surface-area concentration, and volume concentration, as well as the single-scattering albedo and a mean complex refractive index, from multiwavelength lidar measurements. We present the continuation of investigations of the IMP method. Theoretical studies of the degree of ill-posedness of the underlying model, simulation results with respect to the analysis of the retrieval error of microphysical particle properties from multiwavelength lidar data, and a comparison of results for different numbers of backscatter and extinction coefficients are presented. Our analysis shows that the backscatter operator has a smaller degree of ill-posedness than the operator for extinction. This fact underlines the importance of backscatter data. Moreover, the degree of ill-posedness increases with increasing particle absorption, i.e., depends on the imaginary part of the refractive index and does not depend significantly on the real part. Furthermore, an extensive simulation study was carried out for logarithmic-normal size distributions with different median radii, mode widths, and real and imaginary parts of refractive indices. The errors of the retrieved particle properties obtained from the inversion of three backscatter (355, 532, and 1064 nm) and two extinction (355 and 532 nm) coefficients were compared with the uncertainties for the case of six backscatter (400, 710, 800 nm, additionally) and the same two extinction coefficients. For known complex refractive index and up to 20% normally distributed noise, we found that the retrieval errors for effective radius, surface-area concentration, and volume concentration stay below approximately 15% in both cases. Simulations were also made with unknown complex refractive index. In that case the integrated parameters stay below approximately 30%, and the imaginary part of the refractive index stays below 35% for input noise up to 10% in both cases. In general, the quality of the retrieved aerosol parameters depends strongly on the imaginary part owing to the degree of ill-posedness. It is shown that under certain constraints a minimum data set of three backscatter coefficients and two extinction coefficients is sufficient for a successful inversion. The IMP algorithm was finally tested for a measurement case.

Aerosol lidar intercomparison in the framework of the EARLINET project. 2. Aerosol backscatter algorithms.

An intercomparison of aerosol backscatter lidar algorithms was performed in 2001 within the framework of the European Aerosol Research Lidar Network to Establish an Aerosol Climatology (EARLINET). The objective of this research was to test the correctness of the algorithms and the influence of the lidar ratio used by the various lidar teams involved in the EARLINET for calculation of backscatter-coefficient profiles from the lidar signals. The exercise consisted of processing synthetic lidar signals of various degrees of difficulty. One of these profiles contained height-dependent lidar ratios to test the vertical influence of those profiles on the various retrieval algorithms. Furthermore, a realistic incomplete overlap of laser beam and receiver field of view was introduced to remind the teams to take great care in the nearest range to the lidar. The intercomparison was performed in three stages with increasing knowledge on the input parameters. First, only the lidar signals were distributed; this is the most realistic stage. Afterward the lidar ratio profiles and the reference values at calibration height were provided. The unknown height-dependent lidar ratio had the largest influence on the retrieval, whereas the unknown reference value was of minor importance. These results show the necessity of making additional independent measurements, which can provide us with a suitable approximation of the lidar ratio. The final stage proves in general, that the data evaluation schemes of the different groups of lidar systems work well.