Tropospheric and stratospheric wildfire smoke profiling with lidar: Mass, surface area, CCN and INP retrieval

Abstract. We present retrievals of tropospheric and stratospheric height profiles of particle mass, volume, and surface area concentrations in the case of wildfire smoke layers as well as estimates of smoke-related cloud condensation nucleus (CCN) and ice-nucleating particle (INP) concentrations from single-wavelength backscatter lidar measurements at ground and in space. A central role in the data analysis play conversion factors to convert the measured optical into microphysical properties. The set of needed conversion parameters for wildfire smoke are derived from AERONET observations of major smoke events caused by record-breaking wildfires in western Canada in August 2017 and southeastern Australia in January–February 2020. The new smoke analysis scheme is applied to stratospheric CALIPSO observations of fresh smoke plumes over northern Canada in 2017 and New Zealand in January 2020 and to ground-based lidar observation in southern Chile in aged Australian smoke layers in January 2020. These case studies show the potential of spaceborne and ground-based lidars to document large-scale and long-lasting wildfire smoke events in large detail and thus to provide valuable information for climate-, cloud-, and air chemistry modeling efforts performed to investigate the role of wildfire smoke in the atmospheric system.