Asymptotic behavior of lidar scattering properties of absorbing dust aerosols across Rayleigh and geometrical-optics regimes: theory and implications

La Luna, Anthony; Zhang, Zhibo; Song, Qianqian; Yu, Hongbin; Yorks, John E.; Yang, Ping

doi:10.5194/acp-26-14487-2026

Articles | Volume 26, issue 19

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-14487-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-14487-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 26, issue 19

Research article

|

13 Oct 2026

Research article |

| 13 Oct 2026

Asymptotic behavior of lidar scattering properties of absorbing dust aerosols across Rayleigh and geometrical-optics regimes: theory and implications

Anthony La Luna, Zhibo Zhang, Qianqian Song, Hongbin Yu, John E. Yorks, and Ping Yang

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-14487-2026-supplement

Data sets

Data for Asymptotic Behavior of Lidar Scattering Properties of Absorbing Dust Aerosols Across Rayleigh and Geometrical-Optics Regimes: Theory and Implications A. La Luna et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19011869

TAMUdust2020 Database M. Saito https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4711247

Single-scattering properties of tri-axial ellipsoidal mineral dust aerosols: A database for application to radiative transfer calculations Z. Meng et al. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaerosci.2010.02.008

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Mineral dust blown from deserts affects air quality and climate worldwide. Scientists use laser instruments on satellites to detect and measure dust. We discovered that very large, iron-rich dust particles produce signals that fool these instruments into misidentifying them as pollution or smoke. Using light scattering theory, we showed this confusion follows universal physical laws regardless of dust shape – helping scientists better interpret next-generation satellite measurements.