Articles | Volume 25, issue 5
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-3191-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-3191-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
14 Mar 2025
Research article |
| 14 Mar 2025
| 14 Mar 2025
Characterization of aerosol over the eastern Mediterranean by polarization-sensitive Raman lidar measurements during A-LIFE – aerosol type classification and type separation
Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) e.V., Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany
Volker Freudenthaler
Meteorologisches Institut München, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany
Moritz Haarig
Leibniz-Institut für Troposphärenforschung (TROPOS), Leipzig, Germany
Albert Ansmann
Leibniz-Institut für Troposphärenforschung (TROPOS), Leipzig, Germany
Carlos Toledano
Group of Atmospheric Optics, Universidad de Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain
David Mateos
Group of Atmospheric Optics, Universidad de Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain
Petra Seibert
Institute of Meteorology and Climatology, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria
Department of Meteorology and Geophysics, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Rodanthi-Elisavet Mamouri
ERATOSTHENES Centre of Excellence, Limassol, Cyprus
Argyro Nisantzi
ERATOSTHENES Centre of Excellence, Limassol, Cyprus
Josef Gasteiger
Aerosol Physics and Environmental Physics, Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
now at: Hamtec Consulting GmbH at EUMETSAT, Darmstadt, Germany
Maximilian Dollner
Aerosol Physics and Environmental Physics, Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Anne Tipka
Aerosol Physics and Environmental Physics, Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
now at: International Data Centre, Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, P.O. Box 1200, Vienna, Austria
Manuel Schöberl
Aerosol Physics and Environmental Physics, Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Marilena Teri
Aerosol Physics and Environmental Physics, Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Bernadett Weinzierl
Aerosol Physics and Environmental Physics, Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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David Mateos, Carlos Toledano, Abel Calle, Roberto Román, Marcos Herreras-Giralda, Ramiro González, Sara Herrero-Anta, Daniel González-Fernández, Celia Herrero-del Barrio, Argyro Nisantzi, Silke Gross, Victoria E. Cachorro, Ángel M. de Frutos, and Bernadett Weinzierl
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3577, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3577, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
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The A-LIFE experiment deployed in Cyprus included two sun photometers of AERONET network in two different sites. Mineral dust was predominant during the experiment, with Saharan and Arabian dust showing distinct optical properties, in particular, the Angstrom Exponent in the near-infrarred range and Volume Efficiency factor. Both magnitudes can served as a reliable proxy for mineral dust typing. No significant black carbon presence was detected.
Qiang Li and Silke Groß
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2052, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2052, 2025
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This study presents the cirrus occurrence and optical properties at high- and midlatitudes using the satellite lidar measurements. The results indicate the differences in cirrus occurrence and optical properties across latitudes. Besides seasonality, the cirrus extinction and depolarization show a consistent decrease with increasing latitude. The potential causes are discussed and it turns out that aerosol particles show much larger concentrations at midlatitudes than at high-latitudes.
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EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-691, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-691, 2025
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This study proposes a new technique to augment polarimetric radar measurements of the national German operational radar network with vertically looking cloud radars. The method is tested in two different case studies by comparison to dedicated scanning radars revealing promising results. Future usage of the method is motivated by analyzing the coverage of the operational radar network finding advantageous locations with good radar coverage.
Manfred Wendisch, Susanne Crewell, André Ehrlich, Andreas Herber, Benjamin Kirbus, Christof Lüpkes, Mario Mech, Steven J. Abel, Elisa F. Akansu, Felix Ament, Clémantyne Aubry, Sebastian Becker, Stephan Borrmann, Heiko Bozem, Marlen Brückner, Hans-Christian Clemen, Sandro Dahlke, Georgios Dekoutsidis, Julien Delanoë, Elena De La Torre Castro, Henning Dorff, Regis Dupuy, Oliver Eppers, Florian Ewald, Geet George, Irina V. Gorodetskaya, Sarah Grawe, Silke Groß, Jörg Hartmann, Silvia Henning, Lutz Hirsch, Evelyn Jäkel, Philipp Joppe, Olivier Jourdan, Zsofia Jurányi, Michail Karalis, Mona Kellermann, Marcus Klingebiel, Michael Lonardi, Johannes Lucke, Anna E. Luebke, Maximilian Maahn, Nina Maherndl, Marion Maturilli, Bernhard Mayer, Johanna Mayer, Stephan Mertes, Janosch Michaelis, Michel Michalkov, Guillaume Mioche, Manuel Moser, Hanno Müller, Roel Neggers, Davide Ori, Daria Paul, Fiona M. Paulus, Christian Pilz, Felix Pithan, Mira Pöhlker, Veronika Pörtge, Maximilian Ringel, Nils Risse, Gregory C. Roberts, Sophie Rosenburg, Johannes Röttenbacher, Janna Rückert, Michael Schäfer, Jonas Schaefer, Vera Schemann, Imke Schirmacher, Jörg Schmidt, Sebastian Schmidt, Johannes Schneider, Sabrina Schnitt, Anja Schwarz, Holger Siebert, Harald Sodemann, Tim Sperzel, Gunnar Spreen, Bjorn Stevens, Frank Stratmann, Gunilla Svensson, Christian Tatzelt, Thomas Tuch, Timo Vihma, Christiane Voigt, Lea Volkmer, Andreas Walbröl, Anna Weber, Birgit Wehner, Bruno Wetzel, Martin Wirth, and Tobias Zinner
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 8865–8892, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8865-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8865-2024, 2024
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The Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the globe. Warm-air intrusions (WAIs) into the Arctic may play an important role in explaining this phenomenon. Cold-air outbreaks (CAOs) out of the Arctic may link the Arctic climate changes to mid-latitude weather. In our article, we describe how to observe air mass transformations during CAOs and WAIs using three research aircraft instrumented with state-of-the-art remote-sensing and in situ measurement devices.
Clémantyne Aubry, Julien Delanoë, Silke Groß, Florian Ewald, Frédéric Tridon, Olivier Jourdan, and Guillaume Mioche
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 3863–3881, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-3863-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-3863-2024, 2024
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Radar–lidar synergy is used to retrieve ice, supercooled water and mixed-phase cloud properties, making the most of the radar sensitivity to ice crystals and the lidar sensitivity to supercooled droplets. A first analysis of the output of the algorithm run on the satellite data is compared with in situ data during an airborne Arctic field campaign, giving a mean percent error of 49 % for liquid water content and 75 % for ice water content.
Georgios Dekoutsidis, Martin Wirth, and Silke Groß
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 5971–5987, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5971-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5971-2024, 2024
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For decades the earth's temperature has been rising. The Arctic regions are warming faster. Cirrus clouds can contribute to this phenomenon. During warm-air intrusions, air masses are transported into the Arctic from the mid-latitudes. The HALO-(AC)3 campaign took place to measure cirrus during intrusion events and under normal conditions. We study the two cloud types based on these measurements and find differences in their geometry, relative humidity distribution and vertical structure.
Silke Groß, Tina Jurkat-Witschas, Qiang Li, Martin Wirth, Benedikt Urbanek, Martina Krämer, Ralf Weigel, and Christiane Voigt
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 8369–8381, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8369-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8369-2023, 2023
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Aviation-emitted aerosol can have an impact on cirrus clouds. We present optical and microphysical properties of mid-latitude cirrus clouds which were formed under the influence of aviation-emitted aerosol or which were formed under rather pristine conditions. We find that cirrus clouds affected by aviation-emitted aerosol show larger values of the particle linear depolarization ratio, larger mean effective ice particle diameters and decreased ice particle number concentrations.
Georgios Dekoutsidis, Silke Groß, Martin Wirth, Martina Krämer, and Christian Rolf
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 3103–3117, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-3103-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-3103-2023, 2023
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Cirrus clouds affect Earth's atmosphere, deeming our study important. Here we use water vapor measurements by lidar and study the relative humidity (RHi) within and around midlatitude cirrus clouds. We find high supersaturations in the cloud-free air and within the clouds, especially near the cloud top. We study two cloud types with different formation processes. Finally, we conclude that the shape of the distribution of RHi can be used as an indicator of different cloud evolutionary stages.
Yun Li, Christoph Mahnke, Susanne Rohs, Ulrich Bundke, Nicole Spelten, Georgios Dekoutsidis, Silke Groß, Christiane Voigt, Ulrich Schumann, Andreas Petzold, and Martina Krämer
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 2251–2271, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2251-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2251-2023, 2023
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The radiative effect of aviation-induced cirrus is closely related to ambient conditions and its microphysical properties. Our study investigated the occurrence of contrail and natural cirrus measured above central Europe in spring 2014. It finds that contrail cirrus appears frequently in the pressure range 200 to 245 hPa and occurs more often in slightly ice-subsaturated environments than expected. Avoiding slightly ice-subsaturated regions by aviation might help mitigate contrail cirrus.
Ziming Wang, Luca Bugliaro, Tina Jurkat-Witschas, Romy Heller, Ulrike Burkhardt, Helmut Ziereis, Georgios Dekoutsidis, Martin Wirth, Silke Groß, Simon Kirschler, Stefan Kaufmann, and Christiane Voigt
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 1941–1961, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-1941-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-1941-2023, 2023
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Differences in the microphysical properties of contrail cirrus and natural cirrus in a contrail outbreak situation during the ML-CIRRUS campaign over the North Atlantic flight corridor can be observed from in situ measurements. The cirrus radiative effect in the area of the outbreak, derived from satellite observation-based radiative transfer modeling, is warming in the early morning and cooling during the day.
Qiang Li and Silke Groß
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 15963–15980, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-15963-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-15963-2022, 2022
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The IPCC report identified that cirrus clouds have a significant impact on the radiation balance comparable to the CO2 effects, which, however, is still hard to parameterize. The current study investigates the possible impact of aviation on cirrus properties based on the analysis of 10-year lidar measurements of CALIPSO. The results reveal that there is a significant positive trend in cirrus depolarization ratio in the last 10 years before COVID-19, which is strongly correlated with aviation.
Eleni Tetoni, Florian Ewald, Martin Hagen, Gregor Köcher, Tobias Zinner, and Silke Groß
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 15, 3969–3999, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-3969-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-3969-2022, 2022
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We use the C-band POLDIRAD and the Ka-band MIRA-35 to perform snowfall dual-wavelength polarimetric radar measurements. We develop an ice microphysics retrieval for mass, apparent shape, and median size of the particle size distribution by comparing observations to T-matrix ice spheroid simulations while varying the mass–size relationship. We furthermore show how the polarimetric measurements from POLDIRAD help to narrow down ambiguities between ice particle shape and size.
Manuel Gutleben, Silke Groß, Christian Heske, and Martin Wirth
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 7319–7330, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-7319-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-7319-2022, 2022
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The main transportation route of Saharan mineral dust particles leads over the subtropical Atlantic Ocean and is subject to a seasonal variation. This study investigates the characteristics of wintertime transatlantic dust transport towards the Caribbean by means of airborne lidar measurements. It is found that dust particles are transported at low atmospheric altitudes (<3.5 km) embedded in a relatively moist mixture with two other particle types, namely marine and biomass-burning particles.
Martin Hagen, Florian Ewald, Silke Groß, Lothar Oswald, David A. Farrell, Marvin Forde, Manuel Gutleben, Johann Heumos, Jens Reimann, Eleni Tetoni, Gregor Köcher, Eleni Marinou, Christoph Kiemle, Qiang Li, Rebecca Chewitt-Lucas, Alton Daley, Delando Grant, and Kashawn Hall
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 5899–5914, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-5899-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-5899-2021, 2021
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The German polarimetric weather radar Poldirad was deployed for the international campaign EUREC4A on Barbados. The focus was monitoring clouds and precipitation in the trade wind region east of Barbados. Observations were with a temporal sequence of 5 min and a maximum range of 375 km. Examples of mesoscale precipitation patterns, rain rate accumulation, diurnal cycle, and vertical distribution show the potential for further studies on the life cycle of precipitating shallow cumulus clouds.
Heike Konow, Florian Ewald, Geet George, Marek Jacob, Marcus Klingebiel, Tobias Kölling, Anna E. Luebke, Theresa Mieslinger, Veronika Pörtge, Jule Radtke, Michael Schäfer, Hauke Schulz, Raphaela Vogel, Martin Wirth, Sandrine Bony, Susanne Crewell, André Ehrlich, Linda Forster, Andreas Giez, Felix Gödde, Silke Groß, Manuel Gutleben, Martin Hagen, Lutz Hirsch, Friedhelm Jansen, Theresa Lang, Bernhard Mayer, Mario Mech, Marc Prange, Sabrina Schnitt, Jessica Vial, Andreas Walbröl, Manfred Wendisch, Kevin Wolf, Tobias Zinner, Martin Zöger, Felix Ament, and Bjorn Stevens
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 5545–5563, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-5545-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-5545-2021, 2021
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The German research aircraft HALO took part in the research campaign EUREC4A in January and February 2020. The focus area was the tropical Atlantic east of the island of Barbados. We describe the characteristics of the 15 research flights, provide auxiliary information, derive combined cloud mask products from all instruments that observe clouds on board the aircraft, and provide code examples that help new users of the data to get started.
Qiang Li and Silke Groß
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 14573–14590, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-14573-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-14573-2021, 2021
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Aircraft emit exhaust gases and particles directly into the atmosphere, which may contribute to climate change. We present a significant reduction in the occurrence rate and particle linear depolarization ratio of cirrus clouds based on the analysis of measurements with the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) satellite during COVID-19 when air traffic was significantly reduced. The findings imply that these clouds formed with less influence from aviation.
Bjorn Stevens, Sandrine Bony, David Farrell, Felix Ament, Alan Blyth, Christopher Fairall, Johannes Karstensen, Patricia K. Quinn, Sabrina Speich, Claudia Acquistapace, Franziska Aemisegger, Anna Lea Albright, Hugo Bellenger, Eberhard Bodenschatz, Kathy-Ann Caesar, Rebecca Chewitt-Lucas, Gijs de Boer, Julien Delanoë, Leif Denby, Florian Ewald, Benjamin Fildier, Marvin Forde, Geet George, Silke Gross, Martin Hagen, Andrea Hausold, Karen J. Heywood, Lutz Hirsch, Marek Jacob, Friedhelm Jansen, Stefan Kinne, Daniel Klocke, Tobias Kölling, Heike Konow, Marie Lothon, Wiebke Mohr, Ann Kristin Naumann, Louise Nuijens, Léa Olivier, Robert Pincus, Mira Pöhlker, Gilles Reverdin, Gregory Roberts, Sabrina Schnitt, Hauke Schulz, A. Pier Siebesma, Claudia Christine Stephan, Peter Sullivan, Ludovic Touzé-Peiffer, Jessica Vial, Raphaela Vogel, Paquita Zuidema, Nicola Alexander, Lyndon Alves, Sophian Arixi, Hamish Asmath, Gholamhossein Bagheri, Katharina Baier, Adriana Bailey, Dariusz Baranowski, Alexandre Baron, Sébastien Barrau, Paul A. Barrett, Frédéric Batier, Andreas Behrendt, Arne Bendinger, Florent Beucher, Sebastien Bigorre, Edmund Blades, Peter Blossey, Olivier Bock, Steven Böing, Pierre Bosser, Denis Bourras, Pascale Bouruet-Aubertot, Keith Bower, Pierre Branellec, Hubert Branger, Michal Brennek, Alan Brewer, Pierre-Etienne Brilouet, Björn Brügmann, Stefan A. Buehler, Elmo Burke, Ralph Burton, Radiance Calmer, Jean-Christophe Canonici, Xavier Carton, Gregory Cato Jr., Jude Andre Charles, Patrick Chazette, Yanxu Chen, Michal T. Chilinski, Thomas Choularton, Patrick Chuang, Shamal Clarke, Hugh Coe, Céline Cornet, Pierre Coutris, Fleur Couvreux, Susanne Crewell, Timothy Cronin, Zhiqiang Cui, Yannis Cuypers, Alton Daley, Gillian M. Damerell, Thibaut Dauhut, Hartwig Deneke, Jean-Philippe Desbios, Steffen Dörner, Sebastian Donner, Vincent Douet, Kyla Drushka, Marina Dütsch, André Ehrlich, Kerry Emanuel, Alexandros Emmanouilidis, Jean-Claude Etienne, Sheryl Etienne-Leblanc, Ghislain Faure, Graham Feingold, Luca Ferrero, Andreas Fix, Cyrille Flamant, Piotr Jacek Flatau, Gregory R. Foltz, Linda Forster, Iulian Furtuna, Alan Gadian, Joseph Galewsky, Martin Gallagher, Peter Gallimore, Cassandra Gaston, Chelle Gentemann, Nicolas Geyskens, Andreas Giez, John Gollop, Isabelle Gouirand, Christophe Gourbeyre, Dörte de Graaf, Geiske E. de Groot, Robert Grosz, Johannes Güttler, Manuel Gutleben, Kashawn Hall, George Harris, Kevin C. Helfer, Dean Henze, Calvert Herbert, Bruna Holanda, Antonio Ibanez-Landeta, Janet Intrieri, Suneil Iyer, Fabrice Julien, Heike Kalesse, Jan Kazil, Alexander Kellman, Abiel T. Kidane, Ulrike Kirchner, Marcus Klingebiel, Mareike Körner, Leslie Ann Kremper, Jan Kretzschmar, Ovid Krüger, Wojciech Kumala, Armin Kurz, Pierre L'Hégaret, Matthieu Labaste, Tom Lachlan-Cope, Arlene Laing, Peter Landschützer, Theresa Lang, Diego Lange, Ingo Lange, Clément Laplace, Gauke Lavik, Rémi Laxenaire, Caroline Le Bihan, Mason Leandro, Nathalie Lefevre, Marius Lena, Donald Lenschow, Qiang Li, Gary Lloyd, Sebastian Los, Niccolò Losi, Oscar Lovell, Christopher Luneau, Przemyslaw Makuch, Szymon Malinowski, Gaston Manta, Eleni Marinou, Nicholas Marsden, Sebastien Masson, Nicolas Maury, Bernhard Mayer, Margarette Mayers-Als, Christophe Mazel, Wayne McGeary, James C. McWilliams, Mario Mech, Melina Mehlmann, Agostino Niyonkuru Meroni, Theresa Mieslinger, Andreas Minikin, Peter Minnett, Gregor Möller, Yanmichel Morfa Avalos, Caroline Muller, Ionela Musat, Anna Napoli, Almuth Neuberger, Christophe Noisel, David Noone, Freja Nordsiek, Jakub L. Nowak, Lothar Oswald, Douglas J. Parker, Carolyn Peck, Renaud Person, Miriam Philippi, Albert Plueddemann, Christopher Pöhlker, Veronika Pörtge, Ulrich Pöschl, Lawrence Pologne, Michał Posyniak, Marc Prange, Estefanía Quiñones Meléndez, Jule Radtke, Karim Ramage, Jens Reimann, Lionel Renault, Klaus Reus, Ashford Reyes, Joachim Ribbe, Maximilian Ringel, Markus Ritschel, Cesar B. Rocha, Nicolas Rochetin, Johannes Röttenbacher, Callum Rollo, Haley Royer, Pauline Sadoulet, Leo Saffin, Sanola Sandiford, Irina Sandu, Michael Schäfer, Vera Schemann, Imke Schirmacher, Oliver Schlenczek, Jerome Schmidt, Marcel Schröder, Alfons Schwarzenboeck, Andrea Sealy, Christoph J. Senff, Ilya Serikov, Samkeyat Shohan, Elizabeth Siddle, Alexander Smirnov, Florian Späth, Branden Spooner, M. Katharina Stolla, Wojciech Szkółka, Simon P. de Szoeke, Stéphane Tarot, Eleni Tetoni, Elizabeth Thompson, Jim Thomson, Lorenzo Tomassini, Julien Totems, Alma Anna Ubele, Leonie Villiger, Jan von Arx, Thomas Wagner, Andi Walther, Ben Webber, Manfred Wendisch, Shanice Whitehall, Anton Wiltshire, Allison A. Wing, Martin Wirth, Jonathan Wiskandt, Kevin Wolf, Ludwig Worbes, Ethan Wright, Volker Wulfmeyer, Shanea Young, Chidong Zhang, Dongxiao Zhang, Florian Ziemen, Tobias Zinner, and Martin Zöger
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 4067–4119, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-4067-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-4067-2021, 2021
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The EUREC4A field campaign, designed to test hypothesized mechanisms by which clouds respond to warming and benchmark next-generation Earth-system models, is presented. EUREC4A comprised roughly 5 weeks of measurements in the downstream winter trades of the North Atlantic – eastward and southeastward of Barbados. It was the first campaign that attempted to characterize the full range of processes and scales influencing trade wind clouds.
Florian Ewald, Silke Groß, Martin Wirth, Julien Delanoë, Stuart Fox, and Bernhard Mayer
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 5029–5047, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-5029-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-5029-2021, 2021
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In this study, we show how solar radiance observations can be used to validate and further constrain ice cloud microphysics retrieved from the synergy of radar–lidar measurements. Since most radar–lidar retrievals rely on a global assumption about the ice particle shape, ice water content and particle size biases are to be expected in individual cloud regimes. In this work, we identify and correct these biases by reconciling simulated and measured solar radiation reflected from these clouds.
Ourania Soupiona, Alexandros Papayannis, Panagiotis Kokkalis, Romanos Foskinis, Guadalupe Sánchez Hernández, Pablo Ortiz-Amezcua, Maria Mylonaki, Christina-Anna Papanikolaou, Nikolaos Papagiannopoulos, Stefanos Samaras, Silke Groß, Rodanthi-Elisavet Mamouri, Lucas Alados-Arboledas, Aldo Amodeo, and Basil Psiloglou
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 15147–15166, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-15147-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-15147-2020, 2020
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51 dust events over the Mediterranean from EARLINET were studied regarding the aerosol geometrical, optical and microphysical properties and radiative forcing. We found δp532 values of 0.24–0.28, LR532 values of 49–52 sr and AOT532 of 0.11–0.40. The aerosol mixing state was also examined. Depending on the dust properties, intensity and solar zenith angle, the estimated solar radiative forcing ranged from −59 to −22 W m−2 at the surface and from −24 to −1 W m−2 at the TOA (cooling effect).
Anna Gialitaki, Alexandra Tsekeri, Vassilis Amiridis, Romain Ceolato, Lucas Paulien, Anna Kampouri, Antonis Gkikas, Stavros Solomos, Eleni Marinou, Moritz Haarig, Holger Baars, Albert Ansmann, Tatyana Lapyonok, Anton Lopatin, Oleg Dubovik, Silke Groß, Martin Wirth, Maria Tsichla, Ioanna Tsikoudi, and Dimitris Balis
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 14005–14021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-14005-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-14005-2020, 2020
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Stratospheric smoke particles are found to significantly depolarize incident light, while this effect is also accompanied by a strong spectral dependence. We utilize scattering simulations to show that this behaviour can be attributed to the near-spherical shape of the particles. We also examine whether an extension of the current AERONET scattering model to include the near-spherical shapes could be of benefit to the AERONET retrieval for stratospheric smoke associated with enhanced PLDR.
Manuel Gutleben, Silke Groß, Martin Wirth, and Bernhard Mayer
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 12313–12327, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-12313-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-12313-2020, 2020
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Airborne lidar measurements in the vicinity of Barbados are used to investigate radiative effects of long-range-transported Saharan air layers. Derived atmospheric heating rates indicate that observed enhanced water vapor concentrations inside these layers are the main drivers for dust vertical mixing inside the layers. Additionally, they may play a major role for the suppression of subjacent convective cloud development.
Christof G. Beer, Johannes Hendricks, Mattia Righi, Bernd Heinold, Ina Tegen, Silke Groß, Daniel Sauer, Adrian Walser, and Bernadett Weinzierl
Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 4287–4303, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-4287-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-4287-2020, 2020
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Mineral dust aerosol plays an important role in the climate system. Previously, dust emissions have often been represented in global models by prescribed monthly-mean emission fields representative of a specific year. We now apply an online calculation of wind-driven dust emissions. This results in an improved agreement with observations, due to a better representation of the highly variable dust emissions. Increasing the model resolution led to an additional performance gain.
David Mateos, Carlos Toledano, Abel Calle, Roberto Román, Marcos Herreras-Giralda, Ramiro González, Sara Herrero-Anta, Daniel González-Fernández, Celia Herrero-del Barrio, Argyro Nisantzi, Silke Gross, Victoria E. Cachorro, Ángel M. de Frutos, and Bernadett Weinzierl
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3577, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3577, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
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The A-LIFE experiment deployed in Cyprus included two sun photometers of AERONET network in two different sites. Mineral dust was predominant during the experiment, with Saharan and Arabian dust showing distinct optical properties, in particular, the Angstrom Exponent in the near-infrarred range and Volume Efficiency factor. Both magnitudes can served as a reliable proxy for mineral dust typing. No significant black carbon presence was detected.
Gladiola Malollari, Albert Ansmann, Holger Baars, Cristofer Jimenez, Julian Hofer, Ronny Engelmann, Nathan Skupin, and Seit Shallari
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 18, 3937–3944, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-3937-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-3937-2025, 2025
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This study presents, for the first time, the uncertainty analysis of the Ångström exponent assumption on the full set of retrievable optical properties obtained with Raman lidar. A quantitative comparison between the pure rotational and vibrational–rotational Raman lidar approaches is presented. A minor impact of a wrong Ångström exponent on the determined aerosol optical properties is found.
Dimitri Trapon, Holger Baars, Athena Augusta Floutsi, Sebastian Bley, Moritz Haarig, Adrien Lacour, Thomas Flament, Alain Dabas, Amin R. Nehrir, Frithjof Ehlers, and Dorit Huber
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 18, 3873–3896, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-3873-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-3873-2025, 2025
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The study highlights how aerosol measurements from aircraft can be used in synergy with ground-based observations to validate the European Space Agency's Aeolus satellite aerosol product above the tropical Atlantic. For the first time, collocated sections of the troposphere up to 626 km long are crossed. Combining measurements from satellite, aircraft, and ground-based instruments allows characterization of the optical properties of the observed dust particles emitted from the Sahara.
Zhaolong Wu, Patric Seifert, Yun He, Holger Baars, Haoran Li, Cristofer Jimenez, Chengcai Li, and Albert Ansmann
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 18, 3611–3634, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-3611-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-3611-2025, 2025
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This study introduces a novel method to detect horizontally oriented ice crystals (HOICs) using two ground-based polarization lidars at different zenith angles, based on a yearlong dataset collected in Beijing. Combined with cloud radar and reanalysis data, the fine categorization results reveal HOICs occur in calm winds and moderately cold temperatures and are influenced by turbulence near cloud bases. The results enhance our understanding of cloud processes and improve atmospheric models.
Hossein Panahifar, Maria Poutli, George Kotsias, Argyro Nisantzi, Silas Michaelides, Diofantos Hadjimitsis, Patric Seifert, Albert Ansmann, and Rodanthi-Elisavet Mamouri
Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci., XLVIII-G-2025, 1153–1158, https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-XLVIII-G-2025-1153-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-XLVIII-G-2025-1153-2025, 2025
Moritz Haarig, Ronny Engelmann, Holger Baars, Benedikt Gast, Dietrich Althausen, and Albert Ansmann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 7741–7763, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-7741-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-7741-2025, 2025
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The lidar ratio is an important quantity in aerosol typing. Its spectral slope contains information about the source region or transport paths of the observed aerosol. The extension to 1064 nm is a recent development led by our institute. We gathered previous observations and added new ones to provide the spectral slope for the most important aerosol types such as marine and continental aerosol, dust, smoke, and sulfate. We compared it to assumptions used for spaceborne backscatter lidars.
África Barreto, Francisco Quirós, Omaira E. García, Jorge Pereda-de-Pablo, Daniel González-Fernández, Andrés Bedoya-Velásquez, Michael Sicard, Carmen Córdoba-Jabonero, Marco Iarlori, Vincenzo Rizi, Nickolay Krotkov, Simon Carn, Reijo Roininen, Antonio J. Molina-Arias, A. Fernando Almansa, Óscar Álvarez-Losada, Carla Aramo, Juan José Bustos, Romain Ceolato, Adolfo Comerón, Alicia Felpeto, Rosa D. García, Pablo González-Sicilia, Yenny González, Pascal Hedelt, Miguel Hernández, María-Ángeles López-Cayuela, Diego Loyola, Stavros Meletlidis, Constantino Muñoz-Porcar, Ermanno Pietropaolo, Ramón Ramos, Alejandro Rodríguez-Gómez, Roberto Román, Pedro M. Romero-Campos, Martin Stuefer, Carlos Toledano, and Elsworth Welton
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3164, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3164, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Measurement Techniques (AMT).
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This manuscript describes the instrumental coverage deployed during the Tajogaite eruption (19 September–25 December 2021) by the Instituto Geográfico Nacional (IGN), the Spanish State Meteorological Agency (AEMET), and other Spanish members of ACTRIS (Aerosol, Clouds and Trace Gases Research Infrastructure) to monitor its atmospheric impact. Two complementary methods provide consistent plume height data for future operational surveillance.
Roberto Román, Daniel González-Fernández, Juan Carlos Antuña-Sánchez, Celia Herrero del Barrio, Sara Herrero-Anta, África Barreto, Victoria E. Cachorro, Lionel Doppler, Ramiro González, Christoph Ritter, David Mateos, Natalia Kouremeti, Gustavo Copes, Abel Calle, María José Granados-Muñoz, Carlos Toledano, and Ángel M. de Frutos
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 18, 2847–2875, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-2847-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-2847-2025, 2025
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This paper presents a novel technique to extract starlight signals from all-sky images and retrieve aerosol optical depth (AOD). It is validated against lunar photometry, showing a strong correlation between data series. This innovative approach will expand nocturnal AOD measurements to more locations, as all-sky cameras are a simpler and more cost-effective alternative to stellar and lunar photometers.
Marilena Teri, Josef Gasteiger, Katharina Heimerl, Maximilian Dollner, Manuel Schöberl, Petra Seibert, Anne Tipka, Thomas Müller, Sudharaj Aryasree, Konrad Kandler, and Bernadett Weinzierl
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 6633–6662, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-6633-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-6633-2025, 2025
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The A-LIFE aircraft field experiment was carried out in the eastern Mediterranean in 2017. Using A-LIFE data, we studied the change in mineral dust optical properties due to mixing with anthropogenic aerosols. We found that increasing pollution affects dust optical properties, which has implications for identifying dust events and understanding their climate effects. We also show that optical properties of Saharan and Arabian dust are similar when comparing cases with equal pollution content.
Yun He, Goutam Choudhury, Matthias Tesche, Albert Ansmann, Fan Yi, Detlef Müller, and Zhenping Yin
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2666, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2666, 2025
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We present a global data set of POLIPHON dust conversion factors at 532 nm obtained using Aerosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) observations at 137 sites for INP and 123 sites for CCN calculations. We also conduct a comparison of dust CCN concentration profiles derived using both POLIPHON and the independent OMCAM (Optical Modelling of the CALIPSO Aerosol Microphysics) retrieval.
Qiang Li and Silke Groß
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2052, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2052, 2025
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This study presents the cirrus occurrence and optical properties at high- and midlatitudes using the satellite lidar measurements. The results indicate the differences in cirrus occurrence and optical properties across latitudes. Besides seasonality, the cirrus extinction and depolarization show a consistent decrease with increasing latitude. The potential causes are discussed and it turns out that aerosol particles show much larger concentrations at midlatitudes than at high-latitudes.
Kevin Ohneiser, Patric Seifert, Willi Schimmel, Fabian Senf, Tom Gaudek, Martin Radenz, Audrey Teisseire, Veronika Ettrichrätz, Teresa Vogl, Nina Maherndl, Nils Pfeifer, Jan Henneberger, Anna J. Miller, Nadja Omanovic, Christopher Fuchs, Huiying Zhang, Fabiola Ramelli, Robert Spirig, Anton Kötsche, Heike Kalesse-Los, Maximilian Maahn, Heather Corden, Alexis Berne, Majid Hajipour, Hannes Griesche, Julian Hofer, Ronny Engelmann, Annett Skupin, Albert Ansmann, and Holger Baars
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2482, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2482, 2025
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This study focuses on a seeder-feeder cloud system on 8 Jan 2024 in Eriswil, Switzerland. It is shown how the interaction of these cloud systems changes the cloud microphysical properties and the precipitation patterns. A big set of advanced remote-sensing techniques and retrieval algorithms are applied, so that a detailed view on the seeder-feeder cloud system is available. The gained knowledge can be used to improve weather models and weather forecasts.
Albert Ansmann, Cristofer Jimenez, Johanna Roschke, Johannes Bühl, Kevin Ohneiser, Ronny Engelmann, Martin Radenz, Hannes Griesche, Julian Hofer, Dietrich Althausen, Daniel A. Knopf, Sandro Dahlke, Tom Gaudek, Patric Seifert, and Ulla Wandinger
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 4847–4866, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-4847-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-4847-2025, 2025
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In this study, we focus on the potential impact of wildfire smoke on cirrus formation. For the first time, state-of-the-art aerosol and cirrus observations with lidar and radar, presented in this paper (Part 1 of a series of two articles), are closely linked to the comprehensive modeling of gravity-wave-induced ice nucleation in cirrus evolution processes, presented in a companion paper (Part 2). We found a clear impact of wildfire smoke on cirrus evolution.
Albert Ansmann, Cristofer Jimenez, Daniel A. Knopf, Johanna Roschke, Johannes Bühl, Kevin Ohneiser, and Ronny Engelmann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 4867–4884, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-4867-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-4867-2025, 2025
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In this study, we focus on the potential impact of wildfire smoke on cirrus formation. Aerosol and cirrus observations with lidar and radar during the MOSAiC (Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate) expedition, presented in the companion paper (Ansmann et al., 2025), are closely linked to comprehensive modeling of ice nucleation in cirrus evolution processes, presented in this article. A clear impact of wildfire smoke on cirrus formation was found.
Benedikt Gast, Cristofer Jimenez, Albert Ansmann, Moritz Haarig, Ronny Engelmann, Felix Fritzsch, Athena A. Floutsi, Hannes Griesche, Kevin Ohneiser, Julian Hofer, Martin Radenz, Holger Baars, Patric Seifert, and Ulla Wandinger
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 3995–4011, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-3995-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-3995-2025, 2025
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In this study, we discuss the enhanced detection capabilities of a fluorescence lidar in the case of optically thin aerosol layers in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS) region. Our results suggest that such thin aerosol layers are not so rare in the UTLS and can potentially trigger and impact cirrus cloud formation through heterogeneous ice nucleation. By altering the microphysical cloud properties, this could affect clouds' evolution and lifetime and thus their climate effect.
Adèle Georgeot, Xavier Ceamanos, Jean-Luc Attié, Daniel Juncu, Josef Gasteiger, and Mathieu Compiègne
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1353, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1353, 2025
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This work investigates the aerosol remote sensing capabilities offered by the new Meteosat Third Generation-Imager geostationary satellite. First, aerosol load retrieval performance is demonstrated based on realistic synthetic data. Second, the potential for aerosol type characterization is proven, with the estimation of fine mode fraction. This work opens pathways for the future study of diurnal aerosol variations from space thanks to the high temporal resolution of geostationary satellites.
Cristofer Jimenez, Albert Ansmann, Kevin Ohneiser, Hannes Griesche, Ronny Engelmann, Martin Radenz, Julian Hofer, Dietrich Althausen, Daniel Alexander Knopf, Sandro Dahlke, Johannes Bühl, Holger Baars, Patric Seifert, and Ulla Wandinger
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-967, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-967, 2025
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Using advanced remote sensing on the icebreaker Polarstern, we studied mixed-phase clouds (MPCs) in the central Arctic during the 2019–2020 MOSAiC (Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate) campaign. For the first time, lidar and radar techniques tracked the year-round evolution of liquid and ice phases in MPCs. The study provides cloud statistics and explores key processes driving cloud longevity, offering new insights into Arctic cloud formation and persistence.
Christian Heske, Florian Ewald, and Silke Groß
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-691, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-691, 2025
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This study proposes a new technique to augment polarimetric radar measurements of the national German operational radar network with vertically looking cloud radars. The method is tested in two different case studies by comparison to dedicated scanning radars revealing promising results. Future usage of the method is motivated by analyzing the coverage of the operational radar network finding advantageous locations with good radar coverage.
Johanna Roschke, Jonas Witthuhn, Marcus Klingebiel, Moritz Haarig, Andreas Foth, Anton Kötsche, and Heike Kalesse-Los
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 18, 487–508, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-487-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-487-2025, 2025
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We present a technique to discriminate between the Cloudnet target classification of "drizzle or rain" and sea salt aerosols that is applicable to marine Cloudnet sites. The method is crucial for investigating the occurrence of precipitation and significantly improves the Cloudnet target classification scheme for measurements over the Barbados Cloud Observatory (BCO). A first-ever analysis of the Cloudnet product including the new "haze echo" target over 2 years at the BCO is presented.
Xiaoxia Shang, Maria Filioglou, Julian Hofer, Moritz Haarig, Qiaoyun Hu, Philippe Goloub, Sami Romakkaniemi, and Mika Komppula
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3460, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3460, 2025
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We have developed a new method to analyze the aerosol components in the atmosphere. Using depolarization information of laser light measured by lidar instruments, we can separate the three aerosol types in an aerosol mixture. This method has been applied to study the mineral dust from different regions.
Nicholas D. Beres, Julia Burkart, Elias Graf, Yanick Zeder, Lea Ann Dailey, and Bernadett Weinzierl
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 6945–6964, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-6945-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-6945-2024, 2024
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We tested a method to identify airborne microplastics (MPs), merging imaging, fluorescence, and machine learning of single particles. We examined whether combining imaging and fluorescence data enhances classification accuracy compared to using each method separately and tested these methods with other particle types. The tested MPs have distinct fluorescence, and a combined imaging and fluorescence method improves their detection, making meaningful progress in monitoring MPs in the atmosphere.
Sofía Gómez Maqueo Anaya, Dietrich Althausen, Julian Hofer, Moritz Haarig, Ulla Wandinger, Bernd Heinold, Ina Tegen, Matthias Faust, Holger Baars, Albert Ansmann, Ronny Engelmann, Annett Skupin, Birgit Heese, and Kerstin Schepanski
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3159, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3159, 2024
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This study investigates how hematite (an iron oxide mineral) in the Saharan Desert dust affects how dust particles interact with radiation. Using lidar data from Cabo Verde (2021–2022) and hematite content from atmospheric model simulations, the results show that higher hematite fraction leads to stronger particle backscattering at specific wavelengths. These findings can improve the representaiton of mineral dust in climate models, particularly regarding their radiative effect.
Natalie G. Ratcliffe, Claire L. Ryder, Nicolas Bellouin, Stephanie Woodward, Anthony Jones, Ben Johnson, Lisa-Maria Wieland, Maximilian Dollner, Josef Gasteiger, and Bernadett Weinzierl
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 12161–12181, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12161-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12161-2024, 2024
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Large mineral dust particles are more abundant in the atmosphere than expected and have different impacts on the environment than small particles, which are better represented in climate models. We use aircraft measurements to assess a climate model representation of large-dust transport. We find that the model underestimates the amount of large dust at all stages of transport and that fast removal of the large particles increases this underestimation with distance from the Sahara.
Lucie Bakels, Daria Tatsii, Anne Tipka, Rona Thompson, Marina Dütsch, Michael Blaschek, Petra Seibert, Katharina Baier, Silvia Bucci, Massimo Cassiani, Sabine Eckhardt, Christine Groot Zwaaftink, Stephan Henne, Pirmin Kaufmann, Vincent Lechner, Christian Maurer, Marie D. Mulder, Ignacio Pisso, Andreas Plach, Rakesh Subramanian, Martin Vojta, and Andreas Stohl
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 7595–7627, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-7595-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-7595-2024, 2024
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Computer models are essential for improving our understanding of how gases and particles move in the atmosphere. We present an update of the atmospheric transport model FLEXPART. FLEXPART 11 is more accurate due to a reduced number of interpolations and a new scheme for wet deposition. It can simulate non-spherical aerosols and includes linear chemical reactions. It is parallelised using OpenMP and includes new user options. A new user manual details how to use FLEXPART 11.
Manfred Wendisch, Susanne Crewell, André Ehrlich, Andreas Herber, Benjamin Kirbus, Christof Lüpkes, Mario Mech, Steven J. Abel, Elisa F. Akansu, Felix Ament, Clémantyne Aubry, Sebastian Becker, Stephan Borrmann, Heiko Bozem, Marlen Brückner, Hans-Christian Clemen, Sandro Dahlke, Georgios Dekoutsidis, Julien Delanoë, Elena De La Torre Castro, Henning Dorff, Regis Dupuy, Oliver Eppers, Florian Ewald, Geet George, Irina V. Gorodetskaya, Sarah Grawe, Silke Groß, Jörg Hartmann, Silvia Henning, Lutz Hirsch, Evelyn Jäkel, Philipp Joppe, Olivier Jourdan, Zsofia Jurányi, Michail Karalis, Mona Kellermann, Marcus Klingebiel, Michael Lonardi, Johannes Lucke, Anna E. Luebke, Maximilian Maahn, Nina Maherndl, Marion Maturilli, Bernhard Mayer, Johanna Mayer, Stephan Mertes, Janosch Michaelis, Michel Michalkov, Guillaume Mioche, Manuel Moser, Hanno Müller, Roel Neggers, Davide Ori, Daria Paul, Fiona M. Paulus, Christian Pilz, Felix Pithan, Mira Pöhlker, Veronika Pörtge, Maximilian Ringel, Nils Risse, Gregory C. Roberts, Sophie Rosenburg, Johannes Röttenbacher, Janna Rückert, Michael Schäfer, Jonas Schaefer, Vera Schemann, Imke Schirmacher, Jörg Schmidt, Sebastian Schmidt, Johannes Schneider, Sabrina Schnitt, Anja Schwarz, Holger Siebert, Harald Sodemann, Tim Sperzel, Gunnar Spreen, Bjorn Stevens, Frank Stratmann, Gunilla Svensson, Christian Tatzelt, Thomas Tuch, Timo Vihma, Christiane Voigt, Lea Volkmer, Andreas Walbröl, Anna Weber, Birgit Wehner, Bruno Wetzel, Martin Wirth, and Tobias Zinner
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 8865–8892, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8865-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8865-2024, 2024
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The Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the globe. Warm-air intrusions (WAIs) into the Arctic may play an important role in explaining this phenomenon. Cold-air outbreaks (CAOs) out of the Arctic may link the Arctic climate changes to mid-latitude weather. In our article, we describe how to observe air mass transformations during CAOs and WAIs using three research aircraft instrumented with state-of-the-art remote-sensing and in situ measurement devices.
Clémantyne Aubry, Julien Delanoë, Silke Groß, Florian Ewald, Frédéric Tridon, Olivier Jourdan, and Guillaume Mioche
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 3863–3881, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-3863-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-3863-2024, 2024
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Radar–lidar synergy is used to retrieve ice, supercooled water and mixed-phase cloud properties, making the most of the radar sensitivity to ice crystals and the lidar sensitivity to supercooled droplets. A first analysis of the output of the algorithm run on the satellite data is compared with in situ data during an airborne Arctic field campaign, giving a mean percent error of 49 % for liquid water content and 75 % for ice water content.
Georgios Dekoutsidis, Martin Wirth, and Silke Groß
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 5971–5987, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5971-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5971-2024, 2024
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For decades the earth's temperature has been rising. The Arctic regions are warming faster. Cirrus clouds can contribute to this phenomenon. During warm-air intrusions, air masses are transported into the Arctic from the mid-latitudes. The HALO-(AC)3 campaign took place to measure cirrus during intrusion events and under normal conditions. We study the two cloud types based on these measurements and find differences in their geometry, relative humidity distribution and vertical structure.
Manuel Schöberl, Maximilian Dollner, Josef Gasteiger, Petra Seibert, Anne Tipka, and Bernadett Weinzierl
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 2761–2776, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-2761-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-2761-2024, 2024
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Transporting a representative aerosol sample to instrumentation inside a research aircraft remains a challenge due to losses or enhancements of particles in the aerosol sampling system. Here, we present sampling efficiencies and the cutoff diameter for the DLR Falcon aerosol sampling system as a function of true airspeed by comparing the in-cabin and the out-cabin particle number size distributions observed during the A-LIFE aircraft mission.
Henriette Gebauer, Athena Augusta Floutsi, Moritz Haarig, Martin Radenz, Ronny Engelmann, Dietrich Althausen, Annett Skupin, Albert Ansmann, Cordula Zenk, and Holger Baars
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 5047–5067, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5047-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5047-2024, 2024
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Sulfate aerosol from the volcanic eruption at La Palma in 2021 was observed over Cabo Verde. We characterized the aerosol burden based on a case study of lidar and sun photometer observations. We compared the volcanic case to the typical background conditions (reference case) to quantify the volcanic pollution. We show the first ever measurements of the extinction coefficient, lidar ratio and depolarization ratio at 1064 nm for volcanic sulfate.
Alkistis Papetta, Franco Marenco, Maria Kezoudi, Rodanthi-Elisavet Mamouri, Argyro Nisantzi, Holger Baars, Ioana Elisabeta Popovici, Philippe Goloub, Stéphane Victori, and Jean Sciare
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 1721–1738, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-1721-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-1721-2024, 2024
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We propose a method to determine depolarization parameters using observations from a reference instrument at a nearby location, needed for systems where a priori knowledge of cross-talk parameters is not available. It uses three-parameter equations to compare VDR between two co-located lidars at dust and molecular layers. It can be applied retrospectively to existing data acquired during campaigns. Its application to Cimel CE376 corrected VDR bias at high- and low-depolarizing layers.
Carlos Toledano, Sarah Taylor, África Barreto, Stefan Adriaensen, Alberto Berjón, Agnieszka Bialek, Ramiro González, Emma Woolliams, and Marc Bouvet
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 3649–3671, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-3649-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-3649-2024, 2024
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The calibration of Earth observation sensors is key to ensuring the continuity of long-term and global climate records. Satellite sensors, calibrated prior to launch, are susceptible to degradation in space. The Moon provides a stable calibration reference; however, its illumination depends on the Sun–Earth–Moon geometry and must be modelled. A new lunar irradiance model is presented, built upon observations over 5 years at a high-altitude observatory and a rigorous calibration and validation.
Celia Herrero del Barrio, Roberto Román, Ramiro González, Alberto Cazorla, Marcos Herreras-Giralda, Juan Carlos Antuña-Sánchez, Francisco Molero, Francisco Navas-Guzmán, Antonio Serrano, María Ángeles Obregón, Yolanda Sola, Marco Pandolfi, Sara Herrero-Anta, Daniel González-Fernández, Jorge Muñiz-Rosado, David Mateos, Abel Calle, Carlos Toledano, Victoria Eugenia Cachorro, and Ángel Máximo de Frutos
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-581, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-581, 2024
Preprint withdrawn
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Introducing CAECENET, a novel system that combines sun-sky photometer and ceilometer data, enabling the continuous monitoring and automatic retrieval of both vertical and columnar aerosol properties in near real-time. A case study on a Saharan dust outbreak illustrates it's efficacy in tracking aerosol events. Additionally, the analysis of Canadian wildfires' long-range transport is presented, showing it's utility in monitoring event propagation, aerosol concentration, and optical properties.
Sofía Gómez Maqueo Anaya, Dietrich Althausen, Matthias Faust, Holger Baars, Bernd Heinold, Julian Hofer, Ina Tegen, Albert Ansmann, Ronny Engelmann, Annett Skupin, Birgit Heese, and Kerstin Schepanski
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 1271–1295, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-1271-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-1271-2024, 2024
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Mineral dust aerosol particles vary greatly in their composition depending on source region, which leads to different physicochemical properties. Most atmosphere–aerosol models consider mineral dust aerosols to be compositionally homogeneous, which ultimately increases model uncertainty. Here, we present an approach to explicitly consider the heterogeneity of the mineralogical composition for simulations of the Saharan atmospheric dust cycle with regard to dust transport towards the Atlantic.
Julian Hofer, Patric Seifert, J. Ben Liley, Martin Radenz, Osamu Uchino, Isamu Morino, Tetsu Sakai, Tomohiro Nagai, and Albert Ansmann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 1265–1280, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-1265-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-1265-2024, 2024
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An 11-year dataset of polarization lidar observations from Lauder, New Zealand / Aotearoa, was used to distinguish the thermodynamic phase of natural clouds. The cloud dataset was separated to assess the impact of air mass origin on the frequency of heterogeneous ice formation. Ice formation efficiency in clouds above Lauder was found to be lower than in the polluted Northern Hemisphere midlatitudes but higher than in very clean and pristine environments, such as Punta Arenas in southern Chile.
Antonio Fernando Almansa, África Barreto, Natalia Kouremeti, Ramiro González, Akriti Masoom, Carlos Toledano, Julian Gröbner, Rosa Delia García, Yenny González, Stelios Kazadzis, Stéphane Victori, Óscar Álvarez, Fabrice Maupin, Virgilio Carreño, Victoria Eugenia Cachorro, and Emilio Cuevas
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 659–675, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-659-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-659-2024, 2024
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This paper applies sun photometer synergies to improve calibration transference between different sun photometers and also enhance their quality assurance and quality control. We have validated this technique using different instrumentation, the WMO-GAW and NASA-AERONET references, under different aerosol regimes using the standard Langley calibration method as a reference.
Alexandra Tsekeri, Anna Gialitaki, Marco Di Paolantonio, Davide Dionisi, Gian Luigi Liberti, Alnilam Fernandes, Artur Szkop, Aleksander Pietruczuk, Daniel Pérez-Ramírez, Maria J. Granados Muñoz, Juan Luis Guerrero-Rascado, Lucas Alados-Arboledas, Diego Bermejo Pantaleón, Juan Antonio Bravo-Aranda, Anna Kampouri, Eleni Marinou, Vassilis Amiridis, Michael Sicard, Adolfo Comerón, Constantino Muñoz-Porcar, Alejandro Rodríguez-Gómez, Salvatore Romano, Maria Rita Perrone, Xiaoxia Shang, Mika Komppula, Rodanthi-Elisavet Mamouri, Argyro Nisantzi, Diofantos Hadjimitsis, Francisco Navas-Guzmán, Alexander Haefele, Dominika Szczepanik, Artur Tomczak, Iwona S. Stachlewska, Livio Belegante, Doina Nicolae, Kalliopi Artemis Voudouri, Dimitris Balis, Athena A. Floutsi, Holger Baars, Linda Miladi, Nicolas Pascal, Oleg Dubovik, and Anton Lopatin
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 6025–6050, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-6025-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-6025-2023, 2023
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EARLINET/ACTRIS organized an intensive observational campaign in May 2020, with the objective of monitoring the atmospheric state over Europe during the COVID-19 lockdown and relaxation period. The work presented herein focuses on deriving a common methodology for applying a synergistic retrieval that utilizes the network's ground-based passive and active remote sensing measurements and deriving the aerosols from anthropogenic activities over Europe.
Moritz Haarig, Anja Hünerbein, Ulla Wandinger, Nicole Docter, Sebastian Bley, David Donovan, and Gerd-Jan van Zadelhoff
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 5953–5975, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-5953-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-5953-2023, 2023
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The atmospheric lidar (ATLID) and Multi-Spectral Imager (MSI) will be carried by the EarthCARE satellite. The synergistic ATLID–MSI Column Products (AM-COL) algorithm described in the paper combines the strengths of ATLID in vertically resolved profiles of aerosol and clouds (e.g., cloud top height) with the strengths of MSI in observing the complete scene beside the satellite track and in extending the lidar information to the swath. The algorithm is validated against simulated test scenes.
Rodanthi-Elisavet Mamouri, Albert Ansmann, Kevin Ohneiser, Daniel A. Knopf, Argyro Nisantzi, Johannes Bühl, Ronny Engelmann, Annett Skupin, Patric Seifert, Holger Baars, Dragos Ene, Ulla Wandinger, and Diofantos Hadjimitsis
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 14097–14114, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-14097-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-14097-2023, 2023
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For the first time, rather clear evidence is found that wildfire smoke particles can trigger strong cirrus formation. This finding is of importance because intensive and large wildfires may occur increasingly often in the future as climate change proceeds. Based on lidar observations in Cyprus in autumn 2020, we provide detailed insight into the cirrus formation at the tropopause in the presence of aged wildfire smoke (here, 8–9 day old Californian wildfire smoke).
Óscar Alvárez, África Barreto, Omaira E. García, Frank Hase, Rosa D. García, Julian Gröbner, Sergio F. León-Luis, Eliezer Sepúlveda, Virgilio Carreño, Antonio Alcántara, Ramón Ramos, A. Fernando Almansa, Stelios Kazadzis, Noémie Taquet, Carlos Toledano, and Emilio Cuevas
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 4861–4884, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-4861-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-4861-2023, 2023
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In this work, we have extended the capabilities of a portable Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) instrument, which was originally designed to provide high-quality greenhouse gas monitoring within COCCON (COllaborative Carbon Column Observing Network). The extension allows the spectrometer to now also provide coincidentally column-integrated aerosol information. This addition of a reference instrument to a global network will be utilised to enhance our understanding of atmospheric chemistry.
Albert Ansmann, Kevin Ohneiser, Ronny Engelmann, Martin Radenz, Hannes Griesche, Julian Hofer, Dietrich Althausen, Jessie M. Creamean, Matthew C. Boyer, Daniel A. Knopf, Sandro Dahlke, Marion Maturilli, Henriette Gebauer, Johannes Bühl, Cristofer Jimenez, Patric Seifert, and Ulla Wandinger
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 12821–12849, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-12821-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-12821-2023, 2023
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The 1-year MOSAiC (2019–2020) expedition with the German ice breaker Polarstern was the largest polar field campaign ever conducted. The Polarstern, with our lidar aboard, drifted with the pack ice north of 85° N for more than 7 months (October 2019 to mid-May 2020). We measured the full annual cycle of aerosol conditions in terms of aerosol optical and cloud-process-relevant properties. We observed a strong contrast between polluted winter and clean summer aerosol conditions.
Paulus S. Bauer, Dorian Spät, Martina Eisenhut, Andreas Gattringer, and Bernadett Weinzierl
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 4445–4460, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-4445-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-4445-2023, 2023
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Particle number concentration is one of the most important parameters to quantify an aerosol. Aerosol number concentration in the nanometer range is commonly measured with condensation particle counters (CPCs). A CEN technical specification harmonizes the CPC specifications. However, it is not specified for low-pressure conditions as on high mountains or on airplanes. Here, we present the pressure-dependent performance of two different models of CEN CPCs, the Grimm 5410 CEN and the TSI 3772 CEN.
Sara Herrero-Anta, Roberto Román, David Mateos, Ramiro González, Juan Carlos Antuña-Sánchez, Marcos Herreras-Giralda, Antonio Fernando Almansa, Daniel González-Fernández, Celia Herrero del Barrio, Carlos Toledano, Victoria E. Cachorro, and Ángel M. de Frutos
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 4423–4443, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-4423-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-4423-2023, 2023
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This paper shows the potential of a simple radiometer like the ZEN-R52 as a possible alternative for aerosol property retrieval in remote areas. A calibration method based on radiative transfer simulations together with an inversion methodology using the GRASP code is proposed here. The results demonstrate that this methodology is useful for the retrieval of aerosol extensive properties like aerosol optical depth (AOD) and aerosol volume concentration for total, fine and coarse modes.
Ulla Wandinger, Moritz Haarig, Holger Baars, David Donovan, and Gerd-Jan van Zadelhoff
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 4031–4052, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-4031-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-4031-2023, 2023
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We introduce the algorithms that have been developed to derive cloud top height and aerosol layer products from observations with the Atmospheric Lidar (ATLID) onboard the Earth Cloud, Aerosol and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE). The products provide information on the uppermost cloud and geometrical and optical properties of aerosol layers in an atmospheric column. They can be used individually but also serve as input for algorithms that combine observations with EarthCARE’s lidar and imager.
Silke Groß, Tina Jurkat-Witschas, Qiang Li, Martin Wirth, Benedikt Urbanek, Martina Krämer, Ralf Weigel, and Christiane Voigt
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 8369–8381, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8369-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8369-2023, 2023
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Aviation-emitted aerosol can have an impact on cirrus clouds. We present optical and microphysical properties of mid-latitude cirrus clouds which were formed under the influence of aviation-emitted aerosol or which were formed under rather pristine conditions. We find that cirrus clouds affected by aviation-emitted aerosol show larger values of the particle linear depolarization ratio, larger mean effective ice particle diameters and decreased ice particle number concentrations.
Xavier Ceamanos, Bruno Six, Suman Moparthy, Dominique Carrer, Adèle Georgeot, Josef Gasteiger, Jérôme Riedi, Jean-Luc Attié, Alexei Lyapustin, and Iosif Katsev
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 2575–2599, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-2575-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-2575-2023, 2023
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A new algorithm to retrieve the diurnal evolution of aerosol optical depth over land and ocean from geostationary meteorological satellites is proposed and successfully evaluated with reference ground-based and satellite data. The high-temporal-resolution aerosol observations that are obtained from the EUMETSAT Meteosat Second Generation mission are unprecedented and open the door to studies that cannot be conducted with the once-a-day observations available from low-Earth-orbit satellites.
Ulla Wandinger, Athena Augusta Floutsi, Holger Baars, Moritz Haarig, Albert Ansmann, Anja Hünerbein, Nicole Docter, David Donovan, Gerd-Jan van Zadelhoff, Shannon Mason, and Jason Cole
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 2485–2510, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-2485-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-2485-2023, 2023
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We introduce an aerosol classification model that has been developed for the Earth Clouds, Aerosols and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE). The model provides a consistent description of microphysical, optical, and radiative properties of common aerosol types such as dust, sea salt, pollution, and smoke. It is used for aerosol classification and assessment of radiation effects based on the synergy of active and passive observations with lidar, imager, and radiometer of the multi-instrument platform.
Athena Augusta Floutsi, Holger Baars, Ronny Engelmann, Dietrich Althausen, Albert Ansmann, Stephanie Bohlmann, Birgit Heese, Julian Hofer, Thomas Kanitz, Moritz Haarig, Kevin Ohneiser, Martin Radenz, Patric Seifert, Annett Skupin, Zhenping Yin, Sabur F. Abdullaev, Mika Komppula, Maria Filioglou, Elina Giannakaki, Iwona S. Stachlewska, Lucja Janicka, Daniele Bortoli, Eleni Marinou, Vassilis Amiridis, Anna Gialitaki, Rodanthi-Elisavet Mamouri, Boris Barja, and Ulla Wandinger
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 2353–2379, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-2353-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-2353-2023, 2023
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DeLiAn is a collection of lidar-derived aerosol intensive optical properties for several aerosol types, namely the particle linear depolarization ratio, the extinction-to-backscatter ratio (lidar ratio) and the Ångström exponent. The data collection is based on globally distributed, long-term, ground-based, multiwavelength, Raman and polarization lidar measurements and currently covers two wavelengths, 355 and 532 nm, for 13 aerosol categories ranging from basic aerosol types to mixtures.
Yun He, Zhenping Yin, Albert Ansmann, Fuchao Liu, Longlong Wang, Dongzhe Jing, and Huijia Shen
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 1951–1970, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-1951-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-1951-2023, 2023
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With the AERONET database, this study derives dust-related conversion factors at oceanic sites used in the POLIPHON method, which can convert lidar-retrieved dust extinction to ice-nucleating particle (INP)- and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN)-relevant parameters. The particle linear depolarization ratio in the AERONET aerosol inversion product is used to identify dust data points. The derived conversion factors can be applied to inverse 3-D global distributions of dust-related INPCs and CCNCs.
Georgios Dekoutsidis, Silke Groß, Martin Wirth, Martina Krämer, and Christian Rolf
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 3103–3117, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-3103-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-3103-2023, 2023
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Cirrus clouds affect Earth's atmosphere, deeming our study important. Here we use water vapor measurements by lidar and study the relative humidity (RHi) within and around midlatitude cirrus clouds. We find high supersaturations in the cloud-free air and within the clouds, especially near the cloud top. We study two cloud types with different formation processes. Finally, we conclude that the shape of the distribution of RHi can be used as an indicator of different cloud evolutionary stages.
Kevin Ohneiser, Albert Ansmann, Jonas Witthuhn, Hartwig Deneke, Alexandra Chudnovsky, Gregor Walter, and Fabian Senf
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 2901–2925, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2901-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2901-2023, 2023
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This study shows that smoke layers can reach the tropopause via the self-lofting effect within 3–7 d in the absence of pyrocumulonimbus convection if the
aerosol optical thickness is larger than approximately 2 for a longer time period. When reaching the stratosphere, wildfire smoke can sensitively influence the stratospheric composition on a hemispheric scale and thus can affect the Earth’s climate and the ozone layer.
Yun Li, Christoph Mahnke, Susanne Rohs, Ulrich Bundke, Nicole Spelten, Georgios Dekoutsidis, Silke Groß, Christiane Voigt, Ulrich Schumann, Andreas Petzold, and Martina Krämer
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 2251–2271, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2251-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2251-2023, 2023
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The radiative effect of aviation-induced cirrus is closely related to ambient conditions and its microphysical properties. Our study investigated the occurrence of contrail and natural cirrus measured above central Europe in spring 2014. It finds that contrail cirrus appears frequently in the pressure range 200 to 245 hPa and occurs more often in slightly ice-subsaturated environments than expected. Avoiding slightly ice-subsaturated regions by aviation might help mitigate contrail cirrus.
Konstantinos Michailidis, Maria-Elissavet Koukouli, Dimitris Balis, J. Pepijn Veefkind, Martin de Graaf, Lucia Mona, Nikolaos Papagianopoulos, Gesolmina Pappalardo, Ioanna Tsikoudi, Vassilis Amiridis, Eleni Marinou, Anna Gialitaki, Rodanthi-Elisavet Mamouri, Argyro Nisantzi, Daniele Bortoli, Maria João Costa, Vanda Salgueiro, Alexandros Papayannis, Maria Mylonaki, Lucas Alados-Arboledas, Salvatore Romano, Maria Rita Perrone, and Holger Baars
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 1919–1940, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-1919-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-1919-2023, 2023
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Comparisons with ground-based correlative lidar measurements constitute a key component in the validation of satellite aerosol products. This paper presents the validation of the TROPOMI aerosol layer height (ALH) product, using archived quality assured ground-based data from lidar stations that belong to the EARLINET network. Comparisons between the TROPOMI ALH and co-located EARLINET measurements show good agreement over the ocean.
Ziming Wang, Luca Bugliaro, Tina Jurkat-Witschas, Romy Heller, Ulrike Burkhardt, Helmut Ziereis, Georgios Dekoutsidis, Martin Wirth, Silke Groß, Simon Kirschler, Stefan Kaufmann, and Christiane Voigt
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 1941–1961, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-1941-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-1941-2023, 2023
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Differences in the microphysical properties of contrail cirrus and natural cirrus in a contrail outbreak situation during the ML-CIRRUS campaign over the North Atlantic flight corridor can be observed from in situ measurements. The cirrus radiative effect in the area of the outbreak, derived from satellite observation-based radiative transfer modeling, is warming in the early morning and cooling during the day.
Qiang Li and Silke Groß
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 15963–15980, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-15963-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-15963-2022, 2022
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The IPCC report identified that cirrus clouds have a significant impact on the radiation balance comparable to the CO2 effects, which, however, is still hard to parameterize. The current study investigates the possible impact of aviation on cirrus properties based on the analysis of 10-year lidar measurements of CALIPSO. The results reveal that there is a significant positive trend in cirrus depolarization ratio in the last 10 years before COVID-19, which is strongly correlated with aviation.
Pamela S. Rickly, Hongyu Guo, Pedro Campuzano-Jost, Jose L. Jimenez, Glenn M. Wolfe, Ryan Bennett, Ilann Bourgeois, John D. Crounse, Jack E. Dibb, Joshua P. DiGangi, Glenn S. Diskin, Maximilian Dollner, Emily M. Gargulinski, Samuel R. Hall, Hannah S. Halliday, Thomas F. Hanisco, Reem A. Hannun, Jin Liao, Richard Moore, Benjamin A. Nault, John B. Nowak, Jeff Peischl, Claire E. Robinson, Thomas Ryerson, Kevin J. Sanchez, Manuel Schöberl, Amber J. Soja, Jason M. St. Clair, Kenneth L. Thornhill, Kirk Ullmann, Paul O. Wennberg, Bernadett Weinzierl, Elizabeth B. Wiggins, Edward L. Winstead, and Andrew W. Rollins
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 15603–15620, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-15603-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-15603-2022, 2022
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Biomass burning sulfur dioxide (SO2) emission factors range from 0.27–1.1 g kg-1 C. Biomass burning SO2 can quickly form sulfate and organosulfur, but these pathways are dependent on liquid water content and pH. Hydroxymethanesulfonate (HMS) appears to be directly emitted from some fire sources but is not the sole contributor to the organosulfur signal. It is shown that HMS and organosulfur chemistry may be an important S(IV) reservoir with the fate dependent on the surrounding conditions.
Albert Ansmann, Kevin Ohneiser, Alexandra Chudnovsky, Daniel A. Knopf, Edwin W. Eloranta, Diego Villanueva, Patric Seifert, Martin Radenz, Boris Barja, Félix Zamorano, Cristofer Jimenez, Ronny Engelmann, Holger Baars, Hannes Griesche, Julian Hofer, Dietrich Althausen, and Ulla Wandinger
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 11701–11726, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-11701-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-11701-2022, 2022
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For the first time we present a systematic study on the impact of wildfire smoke on ozone depletion in the Arctic (2020) and Antarctic stratosphere (2020, 2021). Two major fire events in Siberia and Australia were responsible for the observed record-breaking stratospheric smoke pollution. Our analyses were based on lidar observations of smoke parameters (Polarstern, Punta Arenas) and NDACC Arctic and Antarctic ozone profiles as well as on Antarctic OMI satellite observations of column ozone.
África Barreto, Rosa D. García, Carmen Guirado-Fuentes, Emilio Cuevas, A. Fernando Almansa, Celia Milford, Carlos Toledano, Francisco J. Expósito, Juan P. Díaz, and Sergio F. León-Luis
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 11105–11124, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-11105-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-11105-2022, 2022
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A comprehensive characterization of atmospheric aerosols in the subtropical eastern North Atlantic has been carried out in this paper using long-term ground AERONET photometric observations over the period 2005–2020 from a unique network made up of four stations strategically located from sea level to 3555 m height on the island of Tenerife. This is a region that can be considered a key location to study the seasonal dependence of dust transport from the Sahel-Sahara.
Xianda Gong, Martin Radenz, Heike Wex, Patric Seifert, Farnoush Ataei, Silvia Henning, Holger Baars, Boris Barja, Albert Ansmann, and Frank Stratmann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 10505–10525, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-10505-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-10505-2022, 2022
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The sources of ice-nucleating particles (INPs) are poorly understood in the Southern Hemisphere (SH). We studied INPs in the boundary layer in the southern Patagonia region. No seasonal cycle of INP concentrations was observed. The majority of INPs are biogenic particles, likely from local continental sources. The INP concentrations are higher when strong precipitation occurs. While previous studies focused on marine INP sources in SH, we point out the importance of continental sources of INPs.
Jörg Wieder, Nikola Ihn, Claudia Mignani, Moritz Haarig, Johannes Bühl, Patric Seifert, Ronny Engelmann, Fabiola Ramelli, Zamin A. Kanji, Ulrike Lohmann, and Jan Henneberger
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 9767–9797, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9767-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9767-2022, 2022
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Ice formation and its evolution in mixed-phase clouds are still uncertain. We evaluate the lidar retrieval of ice-nucleating particle concentration in dust-dominated and continental air masses over the Swiss Alps with in situ observations. A calibration factor to improve the retrieval from continental air masses is proposed. Ice multiplication factors are obtained with a new method utilizing remote sensing. Our results indicate that secondary ice production occurs at temperatures down to −30 °C.
Eleni Tetoni, Florian Ewald, Martin Hagen, Gregor Köcher, Tobias Zinner, and Silke Groß
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 15, 3969–3999, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-3969-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-3969-2022, 2022
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We use the C-band POLDIRAD and the Ka-band MIRA-35 to perform snowfall dual-wavelength polarimetric radar measurements. We develop an ice microphysics retrieval for mass, apparent shape, and median size of the particle size distribution by comparing observations to T-matrix ice spheroid simulations while varying the mass–size relationship. We furthermore show how the polarimetric measurements from POLDIRAD help to narrow down ambiguities between ice particle shape and size.
Kevin Ohneiser, Albert Ansmann, Bernd Kaifler, Alexandra Chudnovsky, Boris Barja, Daniel A. Knopf, Natalie Kaifler, Holger Baars, Patric Seifert, Diego Villanueva, Cristofer Jimenez, Martin Radenz, Ronny Engelmann, Igor Veselovskii, and Félix Zamorano
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 7417–7442, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-7417-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-7417-2022, 2022
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We present and discuss 2 years of long-term lidar observations of the largest stratospheric perturbation by wildfire smoke ever observed. The smoke originated from the record-breaking Australian fires in 2019–2020 and affects climate conditions and even the ozone layer in the Southern Hemisphere. The obvious link between dense smoke occurrence in the stratosphere and strong ozone depletion found in the Arctic and in the Antarctic in 2020 can be regarded as a new aspect of climate change.
Manuel Gutleben, Silke Groß, Christian Heske, and Martin Wirth
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 7319–7330, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-7319-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-7319-2022, 2022
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The main transportation route of Saharan mineral dust particles leads over the subtropical Atlantic Ocean and is subject to a seasonal variation. This study investigates the characteristics of wintertime transatlantic dust transport towards the Caribbean by means of airborne lidar measurements. It is found that dust particles are transported at low atmospheric altitudes (<3.5 km) embedded in a relatively moist mixture with two other particle types, namely marine and biomass-burning particles.
Goutam Choudhury, Albert Ansmann, and Matthias Tesche
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 7143–7161, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-7143-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-7143-2022, 2022
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Lidars provide height-resolved type-specific aerosol properties and are key in studying vertically collocated aerosols and clouds. In this study, we compare the aerosol number concentrations derived from spaceborne lidar with the in situ flight measurements. Our results show a reasonable agreement between both datasets. Such an agreement has not been achieved yet. It shows the potential of spaceborne lidar in studying aerosol–cloud interactions, which is needed to improve our climate forecasts.
Marilena Teri, Thomas Müller, Josef Gasteiger, Sara Valentini, Helmuth Horvath, Roberta Vecchi, Paulus Bauer, Adrian Walser, and Bernadett Weinzierl
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 15, 3161–3187, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-3161-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-3161-2022, 2022
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We performed an extensive closure study including laboratory and simulated experiments to evaluate various angular corrections for the Aurora 4000 polar nephelometer, focusing on irregularly shaped aerosols such as mineral dust. We describe the impact of particle size, refractive index, and shape on the determination of the particle scattering coefficient and propose a guideline to establish the most appropriate angular correction depending on the aerosol type and the investigated size range.
Igor Veselovskii, Qiaoyun Hu, Albert Ansmann, Philippe Goloub, Thierry Podvin, and Mikhail Korenskiy
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 5209–5221, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-5209-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-5209-2022, 2022
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A remote sensing method based on fluorescence lidar measurements can detect and quantify the smoke content in the upper troposphere and inside cirrus clouds. Based on two case studies, we demonstrate that the fluorescence lidar technique provides the possibility to estimate the smoke surface area concentration within freshly formed cirrus layers. This value was used in a smoke ice nucleating particle parameterization scheme to predict ice crystal number concentrations in cirrus generation cells.
Peristera Paschou, Nikolaos Siomos, Alexandra Tsekeri, Alexandros Louridas, George Georgoussis, Volker Freudenthaler, Ioannis Binietoglou, George Tsaknakis, Alexandros Tavernarakis, Christos Evangelatos, Jonas von Bismarck, Thomas Kanitz, Charikleia Meleti, Eleni Marinou, and Vassilis Amiridis
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 15, 2299–2323, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-2299-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-2299-2022, 2022
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The eVe lidar delivers quality-assured aerosol and cloud optical properties according to the standards of ACTRIS. It is a mobile reference system for the validation of the ESA's Aeolus satellite mission (L2 aerosol and cloud products). eVe provides linear and circular polarisation measurements with Raman capabilities. Here, we describe the system design, the polarisation calibration techniques, and the software for the retrieval of the optical products.
Luca Bugliaro, Dennis Piontek, Stephan Kox, Marius Schmidl, Bernhard Mayer, Richard Müller, Margarita Vázquez-Navarro, Daniel M. Peters, Roy G. Grainger, Josef Gasteiger, and Jayanta Kar
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 1029–1054, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-1029-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-1029-2022, 2022
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The monitoring of ash dispersion in the atmosphere is an important task for satellite remote sensing since ash represents a threat to air traffic. We present an AI-based method that retrieves the spatial extension and properties of volcanic ash clouds with high temporal resolution during day and night by means of geostationary satellite measurements. This algorithm, trained on realistic observations simulated with a radiative transfer model, runs operationally at the German Weather Service.
Michaël Sicard, Carmen Córdoba-Jabonero, María-Ángeles López-Cayuela, Albert Ansmann, Adolfo Comerón, María-Paz Zorzano, Alejandro Rodríguez-Gómez, and Constantino Muñoz-Porcar
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 1921–1937, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-1921-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-1921-2022, 2022
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This paper completes the companion paper of Córdoba-Jabonero et al. (2021). We estimate the total direct radiative effect produced by mineral dust particles during the June 2019 mega-heatwave at two sites in Spain and Germany. The results show that the dust particles in the atmosphere contribute to cooling the surface (less radiation reaches the surface) and that the heatwave (parametrized by high surface and air temperatures) contributes to reducing this cooling.
Roberto Román, Juan C. Antuña-Sánchez, Victoria E. Cachorro, Carlos Toledano, Benjamín Torres, David Mateos, David Fuertes, César López, Ramiro González, Tatyana Lapionok, Marcos Herreras-Giralda, Oleg Dubovik, and Ángel M. de Frutos
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 15, 407–433, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-407-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-407-2022, 2022
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An all-sky camera is used to obtain the relative sky radiance, and this radiance is used as input in an inversion code to obtain aerosol properties. This paper is really interesting because it pushes forward the use and capability of sky cameras for more advanced science purposes. Enhanced aerosol properties can be retrieved with accuracy using only an all-sky camera, but synergy with other instruments providing aerosol optical depth could even increase the power of these low-cost instruments.
Jerónimo Escribano, Enza Di Tomaso, Oriol Jorba, Martina Klose, Maria Gonçalves Ageitos, Francesca Macchia, Vassilis Amiridis, Holger Baars, Eleni Marinou, Emmanouil Proestakis, Claudia Urbanneck, Dietrich Althausen, Johannes Bühl, Rodanthi-Elisavet Mamouri, and Carlos Pérez García-Pando
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 535–560, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-535-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-535-2022, 2022
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We explore the benefits and consistency in adding lidar dust observations in a dust optical depth assimilation. We show that adding lidar data to a dust optical depth assimilation has valuable benefits and the dust analysis improves. We discuss the impact of the narrow satellite footprint of the lidar dust observations on the assimilation.
Moritz Haarig, Albert Ansmann, Ronny Engelmann, Holger Baars, Carlos Toledano, Benjamin Torres, Dietrich Althausen, Martin Radenz, and Ulla Wandinger
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 355–369, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-355-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-355-2022, 2022
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The irregular shape of dust particles makes it difficult to treat them correctly in optical models. Atmospheric measurements of dust optical properties are therefore of great importance. The present study increases the space of observed parameters from 355 and 532 nm towards 1064 nm, which is of special importance for large dust particles. The lidar ratio influenced by mineralogy and the depolarization ratio influenced by shape are measured for the first time at all three wavelengths.
Qiansi Tu, Frank Hase, Matthias Schneider, Omaira García, Thomas Blumenstock, Tobias Borsdorff, Matthias Frey, Farahnaz Khosrawi, Alba Lorente, Carlos Alberti, Juan J. Bustos, André Butz, Virgilio Carreño, Emilio Cuevas, Roger Curcoll, Christopher J. Diekmann, Darko Dubravica, Benjamin Ertl, Carme Estruch, Sergio Fabián León-Luis, Carlos Marrero, Josep-Anton Morgui, Ramón Ramos, Christian Scharun, Carsten Schneider, Eliezer Sepúlveda, Carlos Toledano, and Carlos Torres
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 295–317, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-295-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-295-2022, 2022
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We use different methane ground- and space-based remote sensing data sets for investigating the emission strength of three waste disposal sites close to Madrid. We present a method that uses wind-assigned anomalies for deriving emission strengths from satellite data and estimate their uncertainty to 9–14 %. The emission strengths estimated from the remote sensing data sets are significantly larger than the values published in the official register.
Martin Hagen, Florian Ewald, Silke Groß, Lothar Oswald, David A. Farrell, Marvin Forde, Manuel Gutleben, Johann Heumos, Jens Reimann, Eleni Tetoni, Gregor Köcher, Eleni Marinou, Christoph Kiemle, Qiang Li, Rebecca Chewitt-Lucas, Alton Daley, Delando Grant, and Kashawn Hall
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 5899–5914, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-5899-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-5899-2021, 2021
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The German polarimetric weather radar Poldirad was deployed for the international campaign EUREC4A on Barbados. The focus was monitoring clouds and precipitation in the trade wind region east of Barbados. Observations were with a temporal sequence of 5 min and a maximum range of 375 km. Examples of mesoscale precipitation patterns, rain rate accumulation, diurnal cycle, and vertical distribution show the potential for further studies on the life cycle of precipitating shallow cumulus clouds.
Martin Radenz, Johannes Bühl, Patric Seifert, Holger Baars, Ronny Engelmann, Boris Barja González, Rodanthi-Elisabeth Mamouri, Félix Zamorano, and Albert Ansmann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 17969–17994, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17969-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17969-2021, 2021
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This study brings together long-term ground-based remote-sensing observations of mixed-phase clouds at three key locations of aerosol–cloud interactions in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere midlatitudes. The findings contribute several new aspects on the nature of the excess of supercooled liquid clouds in the Southern Hemisphere, such as a long-term lidar-based estimate of ice-nucleating particle profiles as well as the effects of boundary layer coupling and gravity waves on ice formation.
Alexandra Tsekeri, Vassilis Amiridis, Alexandros Louridas, George Georgoussis, Volker Freudenthaler, Spiros Metallinos, George Doxastakis, Josef Gasteiger, Nikolaos Siomos, Peristera Paschou, Thanasis Georgiou, George Tsaknakis, Christos Evangelatos, and Ioannis Binietoglou
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 7453–7474, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-7453-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-7453-2021, 2021
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Dust orientation in the Earth's atmosphere has been an ongoing investigation in recent years, and its potential proof will be a paradigm shift for dust remote sensing. We have designed and developed a polarization lidar that provides direct measurements of dust orientation, as well as more detailed information of the particle microphysics. We provide a description of its design as well as its first measurements.
Heike Konow, Florian Ewald, Geet George, Marek Jacob, Marcus Klingebiel, Tobias Kölling, Anna E. Luebke, Theresa Mieslinger, Veronika Pörtge, Jule Radtke, Michael Schäfer, Hauke Schulz, Raphaela Vogel, Martin Wirth, Sandrine Bony, Susanne Crewell, André Ehrlich, Linda Forster, Andreas Giez, Felix Gödde, Silke Groß, Manuel Gutleben, Martin Hagen, Lutz Hirsch, Friedhelm Jansen, Theresa Lang, Bernhard Mayer, Mario Mech, Marc Prange, Sabrina Schnitt, Jessica Vial, Andreas Walbröl, Manfred Wendisch, Kevin Wolf, Tobias Zinner, Martin Zöger, Felix Ament, and Bjorn Stevens
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 5545–5563, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-5545-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-5545-2021, 2021
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The German research aircraft HALO took part in the research campaign EUREC4A in January and February 2020. The focus area was the tropical Atlantic east of the island of Barbados. We describe the characteristics of the 15 research flights, provide auxiliary information, derive combined cloud mask products from all instruments that observe clouds on board the aircraft, and provide code examples that help new users of the data to get started.
Sebastian Düsing, Albert Ansmann, Holger Baars, Joel C. Corbin, Cyrielle Denjean, Martin Gysel-Beer, Thomas Müller, Laurent Poulain, Holger Siebert, Gerald Spindler, Thomas Tuch, Birgit Wehner, and Alfred Wiedensohler
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 16745–16773, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-16745-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-16745-2021, 2021
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The work deals with optical properties of aerosol particles in dried and atmospheric states. Based on two measurement campaigns in the rural background of central Europe, different measurement approaches were compared with each other, such as modeling based on Mie theory and direct in situ or remote sensing measurements. Among others, it was shown that the aerosol extinction-to-backscatter ratio is relative humidity dependent, and refinement with respect to the model input parameters is needed.
Kevin Ohneiser, Albert Ansmann, Alexandra Chudnovsky, Ronny Engelmann, Christoph Ritter, Igor Veselovskii, Holger Baars, Henriette Gebauer, Hannes Griesche, Martin Radenz, Julian Hofer, Dietrich Althausen, Sandro Dahlke, and Marion Maturilli
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 15783–15808, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-15783-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-15783-2021, 2021
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The highlight of the lidar measurements during the 1-year MOSAiC (Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate) expedition of the German icebreaker Polarstern (October 2019–October 2020) was the detection of a persistent, 10 km deep Siberian wildfire smoke layer in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS) from about 7–8 km to 17–18 km height that could potentially have impacted the record-breaking ozone depletion over the Arctic in the spring of 2020.
Charles A. Brock, Karl D. Froyd, Maximilian Dollner, Christina J. Williamson, Gregory Schill, Daniel M. Murphy, Nicholas J. Wagner, Agnieszka Kupc, Jose L. Jimenez, Pedro Campuzano-Jost, Benjamin A. Nault, Jason C. Schroder, Douglas A. Day, Derek J. Price, Bernadett Weinzierl, Joshua P. Schwarz, Joseph M. Katich, Siyuan Wang, Linghan Zeng, Rodney Weber, Jack Dibb, Eric Scheuer, Glenn S. Diskin, Joshua P. DiGangi, ThaoPaul Bui, Jonathan M. Dean-Day, Chelsea R. Thompson, Jeff Peischl, Thomas B. Ryerson, Ilann Bourgeois, Bruce C. Daube, Róisín Commane, and Steven C. Wofsy
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 15023–15063, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-15023-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-15023-2021, 2021
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The Atmospheric Tomography Mission was an airborne study that mapped the chemical composition of the remote atmosphere. From this, we developed a comprehensive description of aerosol properties that provides a unique, global-scale dataset against which models can be compared. The data show the polluted nature of the remote atmosphere in the Northern Hemisphere and quantify the contributions of sea salt, dust, soot, biomass burning particles, and pollution particles to the haziness of the sky.
Qiang Li and Silke Groß
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 14573–14590, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-14573-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-14573-2021, 2021
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Aircraft emit exhaust gases and particles directly into the atmosphere, which may contribute to climate change. We present a significant reduction in the occurrence rate and particle linear depolarization ratio of cirrus clouds based on the analysis of measurements with the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) satellite during COVID-19 when air traffic was significantly reduced. The findings imply that these clouds formed with less influence from aviation.
Ronny Engelmann, Albert Ansmann, Kevin Ohneiser, Hannes Griesche, Martin Radenz, Julian Hofer, Dietrich Althausen, Sandro Dahlke, Marion Maturilli, Igor Veselovskii, Cristofer Jimenez, Robert Wiesen, Holger Baars, Johannes Bühl, Henriette Gebauer, Moritz Haarig, Patric Seifert, Ulla Wandinger, and Andreas Macke
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 13397–13423, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-13397-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-13397-2021, 2021
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A Raman lidar was operated aboard the icebreaker Polarstern during MOSAiC and monitored aerosol and cloud layers in the central Arctic up to 30 km height. The article provides an overview of the spectrum of aerosol profiling observations and shows aerosol–cloud interaction studies for liquid-water and ice clouds. A highlight was the detection of a 10 km deep wildfire smoke layer over the North Pole up to 17 km height from the fire season of 2019, which persisted over the whole winter period.
Bjorn Stevens, Sandrine Bony, David Farrell, Felix Ament, Alan Blyth, Christopher Fairall, Johannes Karstensen, Patricia K. Quinn, Sabrina Speich, Claudia Acquistapace, Franziska Aemisegger, Anna Lea Albright, Hugo Bellenger, Eberhard Bodenschatz, Kathy-Ann Caesar, Rebecca Chewitt-Lucas, Gijs de Boer, Julien Delanoë, Leif Denby, Florian Ewald, Benjamin Fildier, Marvin Forde, Geet George, Silke Gross, Martin Hagen, Andrea Hausold, Karen J. Heywood, Lutz Hirsch, Marek Jacob, Friedhelm Jansen, Stefan Kinne, Daniel Klocke, Tobias Kölling, Heike Konow, Marie Lothon, Wiebke Mohr, Ann Kristin Naumann, Louise Nuijens, Léa Olivier, Robert Pincus, Mira Pöhlker, Gilles Reverdin, Gregory Roberts, Sabrina Schnitt, Hauke Schulz, A. Pier Siebesma, Claudia Christine Stephan, Peter Sullivan, Ludovic Touzé-Peiffer, Jessica Vial, Raphaela Vogel, Paquita Zuidema, Nicola Alexander, Lyndon Alves, Sophian Arixi, Hamish Asmath, Gholamhossein Bagheri, Katharina Baier, Adriana Bailey, Dariusz Baranowski, Alexandre Baron, Sébastien Barrau, Paul A. Barrett, Frédéric Batier, Andreas Behrendt, Arne Bendinger, Florent Beucher, Sebastien Bigorre, Edmund Blades, Peter Blossey, Olivier Bock, Steven Böing, Pierre Bosser, Denis Bourras, Pascale Bouruet-Aubertot, Keith Bower, Pierre Branellec, Hubert Branger, Michal Brennek, Alan Brewer, Pierre-Etienne Brilouet, Björn Brügmann, Stefan A. Buehler, Elmo Burke, Ralph Burton, Radiance Calmer, Jean-Christophe Canonici, Xavier Carton, Gregory Cato Jr., Jude Andre Charles, Patrick Chazette, Yanxu Chen, Michal T. Chilinski, Thomas Choularton, Patrick Chuang, Shamal Clarke, Hugh Coe, Céline Cornet, Pierre Coutris, Fleur Couvreux, Susanne Crewell, Timothy Cronin, Zhiqiang Cui, Yannis Cuypers, Alton Daley, Gillian M. Damerell, Thibaut Dauhut, Hartwig Deneke, Jean-Philippe Desbios, Steffen Dörner, Sebastian Donner, Vincent Douet, Kyla Drushka, Marina Dütsch, André Ehrlich, Kerry Emanuel, Alexandros Emmanouilidis, Jean-Claude Etienne, Sheryl Etienne-Leblanc, Ghislain Faure, Graham Feingold, Luca Ferrero, Andreas Fix, Cyrille Flamant, Piotr Jacek Flatau, Gregory R. Foltz, Linda Forster, Iulian Furtuna, Alan Gadian, Joseph Galewsky, Martin Gallagher, Peter Gallimore, Cassandra Gaston, Chelle Gentemann, Nicolas Geyskens, Andreas Giez, John Gollop, Isabelle Gouirand, Christophe Gourbeyre, Dörte de Graaf, Geiske E. de Groot, Robert Grosz, Johannes Güttler, Manuel Gutleben, Kashawn Hall, George Harris, Kevin C. Helfer, Dean Henze, Calvert Herbert, Bruna Holanda, Antonio Ibanez-Landeta, Janet Intrieri, Suneil Iyer, Fabrice Julien, Heike Kalesse, Jan Kazil, Alexander Kellman, Abiel T. Kidane, Ulrike Kirchner, Marcus Klingebiel, Mareike Körner, Leslie Ann Kremper, Jan Kretzschmar, Ovid Krüger, Wojciech Kumala, Armin Kurz, Pierre L'Hégaret, Matthieu Labaste, Tom Lachlan-Cope, Arlene Laing, Peter Landschützer, Theresa Lang, Diego Lange, Ingo Lange, Clément Laplace, Gauke Lavik, Rémi Laxenaire, Caroline Le Bihan, Mason Leandro, Nathalie Lefevre, Marius Lena, Donald Lenschow, Qiang Li, Gary Lloyd, Sebastian Los, Niccolò Losi, Oscar Lovell, Christopher Luneau, Przemyslaw Makuch, Szymon Malinowski, Gaston Manta, Eleni Marinou, Nicholas Marsden, Sebastien Masson, Nicolas Maury, Bernhard Mayer, Margarette Mayers-Als, Christophe Mazel, Wayne McGeary, James C. McWilliams, Mario Mech, Melina Mehlmann, Agostino Niyonkuru Meroni, Theresa Mieslinger, Andreas Minikin, Peter Minnett, Gregor Möller, Yanmichel Morfa Avalos, Caroline Muller, Ionela Musat, Anna Napoli, Almuth Neuberger, Christophe Noisel, David Noone, Freja Nordsiek, Jakub L. Nowak, Lothar Oswald, Douglas J. Parker, Carolyn Peck, Renaud Person, Miriam Philippi, Albert Plueddemann, Christopher Pöhlker, Veronika Pörtge, Ulrich Pöschl, Lawrence Pologne, Michał Posyniak, Marc Prange, Estefanía Quiñones Meléndez, Jule Radtke, Karim Ramage, Jens Reimann, Lionel Renault, Klaus Reus, Ashford Reyes, Joachim Ribbe, Maximilian Ringel, Markus Ritschel, Cesar B. Rocha, Nicolas Rochetin, Johannes Röttenbacher, Callum Rollo, Haley Royer, Pauline Sadoulet, Leo Saffin, Sanola Sandiford, Irina Sandu, Michael Schäfer, Vera Schemann, Imke Schirmacher, Oliver Schlenczek, Jerome Schmidt, Marcel Schröder, Alfons Schwarzenboeck, Andrea Sealy, Christoph J. Senff, Ilya Serikov, Samkeyat Shohan, Elizabeth Siddle, Alexander Smirnov, Florian Späth, Branden Spooner, M. Katharina Stolla, Wojciech Szkółka, Simon P. de Szoeke, Stéphane Tarot, Eleni Tetoni, Elizabeth Thompson, Jim Thomson, Lorenzo Tomassini, Julien Totems, Alma Anna Ubele, Leonie Villiger, Jan von Arx, Thomas Wagner, Andi Walther, Ben Webber, Manfred Wendisch, Shanice Whitehall, Anton Wiltshire, Allison A. Wing, Martin Wirth, Jonathan Wiskandt, Kevin Wolf, Ludwig Worbes, Ethan Wright, Volker Wulfmeyer, Shanea Young, Chidong Zhang, Dongxiao Zhang, Florian Ziemen, Tobias Zinner, and Martin Zöger
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 4067–4119, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-4067-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-4067-2021, 2021
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The EUREC4A field campaign, designed to test hypothesized mechanisms by which clouds respond to warming and benchmark next-generation Earth-system models, is presented. EUREC4A comprised roughly 5 weeks of measurements in the downstream winter trades of the North Atlantic – eastward and southeastward of Barbados. It was the first campaign that attempted to characterize the full range of processes and scales influencing trade wind clouds.
Carmen Córdoba-Jabonero, Albert Ansmann, Cristofer Jiménez, Holger Baars, María-Ángeles López-Cayuela, and Ronny Engelmann
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 5225–5239, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-5225-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-5225-2021, 2021
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An experimental assessment of a polarized micro-pulse lidar (P-MPL) in comparison to reference lidars is presented regarding the retrieval of aerosol optical properties. The evaluation is focused on both the optimally determined overlap function and volume linear depolarization ratio. A P-MPL overlap must be regularly estimated to derive suitable aerosol products (backscatter, extinction, and particle depolarization ratio). This methodology can be easily applied to other P-MPL systems.
Florian Ewald, Silke Groß, Martin Wirth, Julien Delanoë, Stuart Fox, and Bernhard Mayer
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 5029–5047, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-5029-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-5029-2021, 2021
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In this study, we show how solar radiance observations can be used to validate and further constrain ice cloud microphysics retrieved from the synergy of radar–lidar measurements. Since most radar–lidar retrievals rely on a global assumption about the ice particle shape, ice water content and particle size biases are to be expected in individual cloud regimes. In this work, we identify and correct these biases by reconciling simulated and measured solar radiation reflected from these clouds.
Hannes J. Griesche, Kevin Ohneiser, Patric Seifert, Martin Radenz, Ronny Engelmann, and Albert Ansmann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 10357–10374, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10357-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10357-2021, 2021
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Heterogeneous ice formation in Arctic mixed-phase clouds under consideration of their surface-coupling state is investigated. Cloud phase and macrophysical properties were determined by means of lidar and cloud radar measurements, the coupling state, and cloud minimum temperature by radiosonde profiles. Above −15 °C cloud minimum temperature, surface-coupled clouds are more likely to contain ice by a factor of 2–6. By means of a literature survey, causes of the observed effects are discussed.
Albert Ansmann, Kevin Ohneiser, Rodanthi-Elisavet Mamouri, Daniel A. Knopf, Igor Veselovskii, Holger Baars, Ronny Engelmann, Andreas Foth, Cristofer Jimenez, Patric Seifert, and Boris Barja
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 9779–9807, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-9779-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-9779-2021, 2021
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We present retrievals of tropospheric and stratospheric height profiles of particle mass, volume, surface area concentration of wildfire smoke layers, and related cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and ice-nucleating particle (INP) concentrations. The new analysis scheme is applied to ground-based lidar observations of stratospheric Australian smoke over southern South America and to spaceborne lidar observations of tropospheric North American smoke.
Christina J. Williamson, Agnieszka Kupc, Andrew Rollins, Jan Kazil, Karl D. Froyd, Eric A. Ray, Daniel M. Murphy, Gregory P. Schill, Jeff Peischl, Chelsea Thompson, Ilann Bourgeois, Thomas B. Ryerson, Glenn S. Diskin, Joshua P. DiGangi, Donald R. Blake, Thao Paul V. Bui, Maximilian Dollner, Bernadett Weinzierl, and Charles A. Brock
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 9065–9088, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-9065-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-9065-2021, 2021
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Aerosols in the stratosphere influence climate by scattering and absorbing sunlight and through chemical reactions occurring on the particles’ surfaces. We observed more nucleation mode aerosols (small aerosols, with diameters below 12 nm) in the mid- and high-latitude lowermost stratosphere (8–13 km) in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) than in the Southern Hemisphere. The most likely cause of this is aircraft emissions, which are concentrated in the NH at similar altitudes to our observations.
Hongyu Guo, Pedro Campuzano-Jost, Benjamin A. Nault, Douglas A. Day, Jason C. Schroder, Dongwook Kim, Jack E. Dibb, Maximilian Dollner, Bernadett Weinzierl, and Jose L. Jimenez
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 3631–3655, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-3631-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-3631-2021, 2021
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We utilize a set of high-quality datasets collected during the NASA Atmospheric Tomography Mission to investigate the impact of differences in observable particle sizes across aerosol instruments in aerosol measurement comparisons. Very good agreement was found between chemically and physically derived submicron aerosol volume. Results support a lack of significant unknown biases in the response of an Aerodyne aerosol mass spectrometer (AMS) when sampling remote aerosols across the globe.
Maria Kezoudi, Matthias Tesche, Helen Smith, Alexandra Tsekeri, Holger Baars, Maximilian Dollner, Víctor Estellés, Johannes Bühl, Bernadett Weinzierl, Zbigniew Ulanowski, Detlef Müller, and Vassilis Amiridis
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 6781–6797, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-6781-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-6781-2021, 2021
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Mineral dust concentrations in the diameter range from 0.4 to 14.0 μm were measured with the balloon-borne UCASS optical particle counter. Launches were coordinated with ground-based remote-sensing and airborne in situ measurements during a Saharan dust outbreak over Cyprus. Particle number concentrations reached 50 cm−3 for the diameter range 0.8–13.9 μm. Comparisons with aircraft data show reasonable agreement in magnitude and shape of the particle size distribution.
Carmen Córdoba-Jabonero, Michaël Sicard, María-Ángeles López-Cayuela, Albert Ansmann, Adolfo Comerón, María-Paz Zorzano, Alejandro Rodríguez-Gómez, and Constantino Muñoz-Porcar
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 6455–6479, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-6455-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-6455-2021, 2021
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The particular pathway of dust outbreaks defines the aerosol scenario and short-wave (SW) dust direct radiative effect (DRE). The synergetic use of POLIPHON method with continuous P-MPL measurements allows SW DRE of coarse (Dc) and fine (Df) dust particles to be evaluated separately. A dust-induced cooling effect is found, and despite Dc usually being dominant in intense dust events, the Df contribution to the total DRE can be significant, being higher at the top of atmosphere than on surface.
Ville Vakkari, Holger Baars, Stephanie Bohlmann, Johannes Bühl, Mika Komppula, Rodanthi-Elisavet Mamouri, and Ewan James O'Connor
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 5807–5820, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-5807-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-5807-2021, 2021
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The depolarization ratio is a valuable parameter for aerosol categorization from remote sensing measurements. Here, we introduce particle depolarization ratio measurements at the 1565 nm wavelength, which is substantially longer than previously utilized wavelengths and enhances our capabilities to study the wavelength dependency of the particle depolarization ratio.
Juan C. Antuña-Sánchez, Roberto Román, Victoria E. Cachorro, Carlos Toledano, César López, Ramiro González, David Mateos, Abel Calle, and Ángel M. de Frutos
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 2201–2217, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-2201-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-2201-2021, 2021
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This paper presents a new technique to exploit the potential of all-sky cameras. The sky radiance at three effective wavelengths is calculated and compared with alternative measurements and simulated data. The proposed method will be useful for the retrieval of aerosol and cloud properties.
Cristofer Jimenez, Albert Ansmann, Ronny Engelmann, David Donovan, Aleksey Malinka, Jörg Schmidt, Patric Seifert, and Ulla Wandinger
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 15247–15263, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-15247-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-15247-2020, 2020
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A novel lidar method to study cloud microphysical properties (of liquid water clouds) and to study aerosol–cloud interaction (ACI) is developed and presented in this paper. In Part 1, the theoretical framework including an error analysis is given together with an overview of the aerosol information that the same lidar system can obtain. The ACI concept based on aerosol and cloud information is also explained. Applications of the proposed approach to lidar measurements are presented in Part 2.
Cristofer Jimenez, Albert Ansmann, Ronny Engelmann, David Donovan, Aleksey Malinka, Patric Seifert, Robert Wiesen, Martin Radenz, Zhenping Yin, Johannes Bühl, Jörg Schmidt, Boris Barja, and Ulla Wandinger
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 15265–15284, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-15265-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-15265-2020, 2020
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Part 2 presents the application of the dual-FOV polarization lidar technique introduced in Part 1. A lidar system was upgraded with a second polarization telescope, and it was deployed at the southernmost tip of South America. A comparison with alternative remote sensing techniques and the evaluation of the aerosol–cloud–wind relation in a convective boundary layer in pristine marine conditions are presented in two case studies, demonstrating the potential of the approach for ACI studies.
Ourania Soupiona, Alexandros Papayannis, Panagiotis Kokkalis, Romanos Foskinis, Guadalupe Sánchez Hernández, Pablo Ortiz-Amezcua, Maria Mylonaki, Christina-Anna Papanikolaou, Nikolaos Papagiannopoulos, Stefanos Samaras, Silke Groß, Rodanthi-Elisavet Mamouri, Lucas Alados-Arboledas, Aldo Amodeo, and Basil Psiloglou
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 15147–15166, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-15147-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-15147-2020, 2020
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51 dust events over the Mediterranean from EARLINET were studied regarding the aerosol geometrical, optical and microphysical properties and radiative forcing. We found δp532 values of 0.24–0.28, LR532 values of 49–52 sr and AOT532 of 0.11–0.40. The aerosol mixing state was also examined. Depending on the dust properties, intensity and solar zenith angle, the estimated solar radiative forcing ranged from −59 to −22 W m−2 at the surface and from −24 to −1 W m−2 at the TOA (cooling effect).
Agnieszka Kupc, Christina J. Williamson, Anna L. Hodshire, Jan Kazil, Eric Ray, T. Paul Bui, Maximilian Dollner, Karl D. Froyd, Kathryn McKain, Andrew Rollins, Gregory P. Schill, Alexander Thames, Bernadett B. Weinzierl, Jeffrey R. Pierce, and Charles A. Brock
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 15037–15060, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-15037-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-15037-2020, 2020
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Tropical upper troposphere over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans is a major source region of new particles. These particles are associated with the outflow from deep convection. We investigate the processes that govern the formation of these particles and their initial growth and show that none of the formation schemes commonly used in global models are consistent with observations. Using newer schemes indicates that organic compounds are likely important as nucleating and initial growth agents.
Roberto Román, Ramiro González, Carlos Toledano, África Barreto, Daniel Pérez-Ramírez, Jose A. Benavent-Oltra, Francisco J. Olmo, Victoria E. Cachorro, Lucas Alados-Arboledas, and Ángel M. de Frutos
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 13, 6293–6310, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-6293-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-6293-2020, 2020
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Atmospheric-aerosol and gaseous properties can be derived at night-time if the lunar irradiance at the ground is measured. To this end, the knowledge of lunar irradiance at the top of the atmosphere is necessary. This extraterrestrial lunar irradiance is usually calculated by models since it varies with several geometric factors mainly depending on time and location. This paper proposes a correction to the most used lunar-irradiance model to be applied for atmospheric-aerosol characterization.
Anna Gialitaki, Alexandra Tsekeri, Vassilis Amiridis, Romain Ceolato, Lucas Paulien, Anna Kampouri, Antonis Gkikas, Stavros Solomos, Eleni Marinou, Moritz Haarig, Holger Baars, Albert Ansmann, Tatyana Lapyonok, Anton Lopatin, Oleg Dubovik, Silke Groß, Martin Wirth, Maria Tsichla, Ioanna Tsikoudi, and Dimitris Balis
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 14005–14021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-14005-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-14005-2020, 2020
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Stratospheric smoke particles are found to significantly depolarize incident light, while this effect is also accompanied by a strong spectral dependence. We utilize scattering simulations to show that this behaviour can be attributed to the near-spherical shape of the particles. We also examine whether an extension of the current AERONET scattering model to include the near-spherical shapes could be of benefit to the AERONET retrieval for stratospheric smoke associated with enhanced PLDR.
Anne Tipka, Leopold Haimberger, and Petra Seibert
Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 5277–5310, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-5277-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-5277-2020, 2020
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Flex_extract v7.1 is an open-source software to retrieve and prepare meteorological fields from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) MARS archive to serve as input for the FLEXTRA–FLEXPART atmospheric transport modelling system. It can be used by public as well as member-state users and enables the retrieval of a variety of different data sets, including the new reanalysis ERA5. Instructions are given for installation along with typical usage scenarios.
Ramiro González, Carlos Toledano, Roberto Román, David Fuertes, Alberto Berjón, David Mateos, Carmen Guirado-Fuentes, Cristian Velasco-Merino, Juan Carlos Antuña-Sánchez, Abel Calle, Victoria E. Cachorro, and Ángel M. de Frutos
Geosci. Instrum. Method. Data Syst., 9, 417–433, https://doi.org/10.5194/gi-9-417-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/gi-9-417-2020, 2020
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Aerosol optical depth (AOD) is a parameter widely used in remote sensing for the characterization of atmospheric aerosol particles. AERONET was created by NASA for aerosol monitoring as well as satellite and model validation. The University of Valladolid (UVa) has managed an AERONET calibration center since 2006. The CÆLIS software tool, developed by UVa, was created to manage the data generated by AERONET photometers. The AOD algorithm in CÆLIS is developed and validated in this work.
Manuel Gutleben, Silke Groß, Martin Wirth, and Bernhard Mayer
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 12313–12327, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-12313-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-12313-2020, 2020
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Airborne lidar measurements in the vicinity of Barbados are used to investigate radiative effects of long-range-transported Saharan air layers. Derived atmospheric heating rates indicate that observed enhanced water vapor concentrations inside these layers are the main drivers for dust vertical mixing inside the layers. Additionally, they may play a major role for the suppression of subjacent convective cloud development.
Hannes J. Griesche, Patric Seifert, Albert Ansmann, Holger Baars, Carola Barrientos Velasco, Johannes Bühl, Ronny Engelmann, Martin Radenz, Yin Zhenping, and Andreas Macke
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 13, 5335–5358, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-5335-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-5335-2020, 2020
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In summer 2017, the research vessel Polarstern performed cruise PS106 to the Arctic north of Svalbard. In the frame of the cruise, remote-sensing observations of the atmosphere were performed on Polarstern to continuously monitor aerosol and clouds above the vessel. In our study, we present the deployed instrumentation and applied data analysis methods and provide case studies of the aerosol and cloud observations made during the cruise. Statistics of low-cloud occurrence are presented as well.
Christof G. Beer, Johannes Hendricks, Mattia Righi, Bernd Heinold, Ina Tegen, Silke Groß, Daniel Sauer, Adrian Walser, and Bernadett Weinzierl
Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 4287–4303, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-4287-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-4287-2020, 2020
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Mineral dust aerosol plays an important role in the climate system. Previously, dust emissions have often been represented in global models by prescribed monthly-mean emission fields representative of a specific year. We now apply an online calculation of wind-driven dust emissions. This results in an improved agreement with observations, due to a better representation of the highly variable dust emissions. Increasing the model resolution led to an additional performance gain.
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Short summary
Aerosols contribute to the largest uncertainties in climate change predictions. The eastern Mediterranean is a hotspot for aerosols with natural and anthropogenic contributions. We present lidar measurements performed during A-LIFE (Absorbing aerosol layers in a changing climate: aging, lifetime and dynamics) to characterize aerosols and aerosol mixtures. We extend current lidar classification and separation schemes and compare them to classification schemes using different methods.
Aerosols contribute to the largest uncertainties in climate change predictions. The eastern...
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