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    Advection of Biomass Burning Aerosols towards the Southern Hemispheric Mid-Latitude Station of Punta Arenas as Observed with Multiwavelength Polarization Raman Lidar
    (Basel : MDPI AG, 2021) Floutsi, Athena Augusta; Baars, Holger; Radenz, Martin; Haarig, Moritz; Yin, Zhenping; Seifert, Patric; Jimenez, Cristofer; Ansmann, Albert; Engelmann, Ronny; Barja, Boris; Zamorano, Felix; Wandinger, Ulla
    In this paper, we present long-term observations of the multiwavelength Raman lidar PollyXT conducted in the framework of the DACAPO-PESO campaign. Regardless of the relatively clean atmosphere in the southern mid-latitude oceans region, we regularly observed events of long-range transported smoke, originating either from regional sources in South America or from Australia. Two case studies will be discussed, both identified as smoke events that occurred on 5 February 2019 and 11 March 2019. For the first case considered, the lofted smoke layer was located at an altitude between 1.0 and 4.2 km, and apart from the predominance of smoke particles, particle linear depolarization values indicated the presence of dust particles. Mean lidar ratio values at 355 and 532 nm were 49 ± 12 and 24 ± 18 sr respectively, while the mean particle linear depolarization was 7.6 ± 3.6% at 532 nm. The advection of smoke and dust particles above Punta Arenas affected significantly the available cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and ice nucleating particles (INP) in the lower troposphere, and effectively triggered the ice crystal formation processes. Regarding the second case, the thin smoke layers were observed at altitudes 5.5–7.0, 9.0 and 11.0 km. The particle linear depolarization ratio at 532 nm increased rapidly with height, starting from 2% for the lowest two layers and increasing up to 9.5% for the highest layer, indicating the possible presence of non-spherical coated soot aggregates. INP activation was effectively facilitated. The long-term analysis of the one year of observations showed that tropospheric smoke advection over Punta Arenas occurred 16 times (lasting from 1 to 17 h), regularly distributed over the period and with high potential to influence cloud formation in the otherwise pristine environment of the region.
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    Aerosol absorption profiling from the synergy of lidar and sun-photometry: The ACTRIS-2 campaigns in Germany, Greece and Cyprus
    (Les Ulis : EDP Sciences, 2018) Tsekeri, Alexandra; Amiridis, Vassilis; Lopatin, Anton; Marinou, Eleni; Giannakaki, Eleni; Pikridas, Michael; Sciare, Jean; Liakakou, Eleni; Gerasopoulos, Evangelos; Duesing, Sebastian; Corbin, Joel C.; Gysel, Martin; Bukowiecki, Nicolas; Baars, Holger; Engelmann, Ronny; Wehner, Birgit; Kottas, Michael; Mamali, Dimitra; Kokkalis, Panagiotis; Raptis, Panagiotis I.; Stavroulas, Iasonas; Keleshis, Christos; Müller, Detlef; Solomos, Stavros; Binietoglou, Ioannis; Mihalopoulos, Nikolaos; Papayannis, Alexandros; Stachlewska, Iwona S.; Igloffstein, Julia; Wandinger, Ulla; Ansmann, Albert; Dubovik, Oleg; Goloub, Philippe; Nicolae, D.; Makoto, A.; Vassilis, A.; Balis, D.; Behrendt, A.; Comeron, A.; Gibert, F.; Landulfo, E.; McCormick, M.P.; Senff, C.; Veselovskii, I.; Wandinger, U.
    Aerosol absorption profiling is crucial for radiative transfer calculations and climate modelling. Here, we utilize the synergy of lidar with sun-photometer measurements to derive the absorption coefficient and single scattering albedo profiles during the ACTRIS-2 campaigns held in Germany, Greece and Cyprus. The remote sensing techniques are compared with in situ measurements in order to harmonize and validate the different methodologies and reduce the absorption profiling uncertainties.
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    Californian Wildfire Smoke Over Europe: A First Example of the Aerosol Observing Capabilities of Aeolus Compared to Ground‐Based Lidar
    (Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 2021) Baars, Holger; Radenz, Martin; Floutsi, Athena Augusta; Engelmann, Ronny; Althausen, Dietrich; Heese, Birgit; Ansmann, Albert; Flament, Thomas; Dabas, Alain; Trapon, Dimitri; Reitebuch, Oliver; Bley, Sebastian; Wandinger, Ulla
    In September 2020, extremely strong wildfires in the western United States of America (i.e., mainly in California) produced large amounts of smoke, which was lifted into the free troposphere. These biomass-burning-aerosol (BBA) layers were transported from the US west coast toward central Europe within 3–4 days turning the sky milky and receiving high media attention. The present study characterizes this pronounced smoke plume above Leipzig, Germany, using a ground-based multiwavelength-Raman-polarization lidar and the aerosol/cloud product of ESA’s wind lidar mission Aeolus. An exceptional high smoke-AOT >0.4 was measured, yielding to a mean mass concentration of 8 μg m−3. The 355 nm lidar ratio was moderate at around 40–50 sr. The Aeolus-derived backscatter, extinction and lidar ratio profiles agree well with the observations of the ground-based lidar PollyXT considering the fact that Aeolus’ aerosol and cloud products are still preliminary and subject to ongoing algorithm improvements.
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    An automatic aerosol classification for earlinet: Application and results
    (Les Ulis : EDP Sciences, 2018) Papagiannopoulos, Nikolaos; Mona, Lucia; Amiridis, Vassilis; Binietoglou, Ioannis; D’Amico, Giuseppe; Guma-Claramunt, P.; Schwarz, Anja; Alados-Arboledas, Lucas; Amodeo, Aldo; Apituley, Arnoud; Baars, Holger; Bortoli, Daniele; Comeron, Adolfo; Guerrero-Rascado, Juan Luis; Kokkalis, Panos; Nicolae, Doina; Papayannis, Alex; Pappalardo, Gelsomina; Wandinger, Ulla; Wiegner, Matthias; Nicolae, D.; Makoto, A.; Vassilis, A.; Balis, D.; Behrendt, A.; Comeron, A.; Gibert, F.; Landulfo, E.; McCormick, M.P.; Senff, C.; Veselovskii, I.; Wandinger, U.
    Aerosol typing is essential for understanding the impact of the different aerosol sources on climate, weather system and air quality. An aerosol classification method for EARLINET (European Aerosol Research Lidar Network) measurements is introduced which makes use the Mahalanobis distance classifier. The performance of the automatic classification is tested against manually classified EARLINET data. Results of the application of the method to an extensive aerosol dataset will be presented.
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    PollyNET - an emerging network of automated raman-polarizarion lidars for continuous aerosolprofiling
    (Les Ulis : EDP Sciences, 2018) Baars, Holger; Althausen, Dietrich; Engelmann, Ronny; Heese, Birgit; Ansmann, Albert; Wandinger, Ulla; Hofer, Julian; Skupin, Annett; Komppula, Mika; Giannakaki, Eleni; Filioglou, Maria; Bortoli, Daniele; Silva, Ana Maria; Pereira, Sergio; Stachlewska, Iwona S.; Kumala, Wojciech; Szczepanik, Dominika; Amiridis, Vassilis; Marinou, Eleni; Kottas, Michail; Mattis, Ina; Müller, Gerhard; Nicolae, D.; Makoto, A.; Vassilis, A.; Balis, D.; Behrendt, A.; Comeron, A.; Gibert, F.; Landulfo, E.; McCormick, M.P.; Senff, C.; Veselovskii, I.; Wandinger, U.
    PollyNET is a network of portable, automated, and continuously measuring Ramanpolarization lidars of type Polly operated by several institutes worldwide. The data from permanent and temporary measurements sites are automatically processed in terms of optical aerosol profiles and displayed in near-real time at polly.tropos.de. According to current schedules, the network will grow by 3-4 systems during the upcoming 2-3 years and will then comprise 11 permanent stations and 2 mobile platforms.
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    Earlinet validation of CATS L2 product
    (Les Ulis : EDP Sciences, 2018) Proestakis, Emmanouil; Amiridis, Vassilis; Kottas, Michael; Marinou, Eleni; Binietoglou, Ioannis; Ansmann, Albert; Wandinger, Ulla; Yorks, John; Nowottnick, Edward; Makhmudov, Abduvosit; Papayannis, Alexandros; Pietruczuk, Aleksander; Gialitaki, Anna; Apituley, Arnoud; Muñoz-Porcar, Constantino; Bortoli, Daniele; Dionisi, Davide; Althausen, Dietrich; Mamali, Dimitra; Balis, Dimitris; Nicolae, Doina; Tetoni, Eleni; Luigi Liberti, Gian; Baars, Holger; Stachlewska, Iwona S.; Voudouri, Kalliopi-Artemis; Mona, Lucia; Mylonaki, Maria; Rita Perrone, Maria; João Costa, Maria; Sicard, Michael; Papagiannopoulos, Nikolaos; Siomos, Nikolaos; Burlizzi, Pasquale; Engelmann, Ronny; Abdullaev, Sabur F.; Hofer, Julian; Pappalardo, Gelsomina; Nicolae, D.; Makoto, A.; Vassilis, A.; Balis, D.; Behrendt, A.; Comeron, A.; Gibert, F.; Landulfo, E.; McCormick, M.P.; Senff, C.; Veselovskii, I.; Wandinger, U.
    The Cloud-Aerosol Transport System (CATS) onboard the International Space Station (ISS), is a lidar system providing vertically resolved aerosol and cloud profiles since February 2015. In this study, the CATS aerosol product is validated against the aerosol profiles provided by the European Aerosol Research Lidar Network (EARLINET). This validation activity is based on collocated CATS-EARLINET measurements and the comparison of the particle backscatter coefficient at 1064nm.
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    Ozone depletion in the Arctic and Antarctic stratosphere induced by wildfire smoke
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : EGU, 2022) Ansmann, Albert; Ohneiser, Kevin; Chudnovsky, Alexandra; Knopf, Daniel A.; Eloranta, Edwin W.; Villanueva, Diego; Seifert, Patric; Radenz, Martin; Barja, Boris; Zamorano, Félix; Jimenez, Cristofer; Engelmann, Ronny; Baars, Holger; Griesche, Hannes; Hofer, Julian; Althausen, Dietrich; Wandinger, Ulla
    A record-breaking stratospheric ozone loss was observed over the Arctic and Antarctica in 2020. Strong ozone depletion occurred over Antarctica in 2021 as well. The ozone holes developed in smoke-polluted air. In this article, the impact of Siberian and Australian wildfire smoke (dominated by organic aerosol) on the extraordinarily strong ozone reduction is discussed. The study is based on aerosol lidar observations in the North Pole region (October 2019-May 2020) and over Punta Arenas in southern Chile at 53.2°S (January 2020-November 2021) as well as on respective NDACC (Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change) ozone profile observations in the Arctic (Ny-Ålesund) and Antarctica (Neumayer and South Pole stations) in 2020 and 2021. We present a conceptual approach on how the smoke may have influenced the formation of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs), which are of key importance in the ozone-depleting processes. The main results are as follows: (a) the direct impact of wildfire smoke below the PSC height range (at 10-12 km) on ozone reduction seems to be similar to well-known volcanic sulfate aerosol effects. At heights of 10-12 km, smoke particle surface area (SA) concentrations of 5-7 μm2 cm-3 (Antarctica, spring 2021) and 6-10 μm2 cm-3 (Arctic, spring 2020) were correlated with an ozone reduction in terms of ozone partial pressure of 0.4-1.2 mPa (about 30 % further ozone reduction over Antarctica) and of 2-3.5 mPa (Arctic, 20 %-30 % reduction with respect to the long-term springtime mean). (b) Within the PSC height range, we found indications that smoke was able to slightly increase the PSC particle number and surface area concentration. In particular, a smoke-related additional ozone loss of 1-2 mPa (10 %-20 % contribution to the total ozone loss over Antarctica) was observed in the 14-23 km PSC height range in September-October 2020 and 2021. Smoke particle number concentrations ranged from 10 to 100 cm-3 and were about a factor of 10 (in 2020) and 5 (in 2021) above the stratospheric aerosol background level. Satellite observations indicated an additional mean column ozone loss (deviation from the long-term mean) of 26-30 Dobson units (9 %-10 %, September 2020, 2021) and 52-57 Dobson units (17 %-20 %, October 2020, 2021) in the smoke-polluted latitudinal Antarctic belt from 70-80°S. Copyright:
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    Wildfire smoke, Arctic haze, and aerosol effects on mixed-phase and cirrus clouds over the North Pole region during MOSAiC: an introduction
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : European Geosciences Union, 2021) Engelmann, Ronny; Ansmann, Albert; Ohneiser, Kevin; Griesche, Hannes; Radenz, Martin; Hofer, Julian; Althausen, Dietrich; Dahlke, Sandro; Maturilli, Marion; Veselovskii, Igor; Jimenez, Cristofer; Wiesen, Robert; Baars, Holger; Bühl, Johannes; Gebauer, Henriette; Haarig, Moritz; Seifert, Patric; Wandinger, Ulla; Macke, Andreas
    An advanced multiwavelength polarization Raman lidar was operated aboard the icebreaker Polarstern during the MOSAiC (Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate) expedition to continuously monitor aerosol and cloud layers in the central Arctic up to 30gkm height. The expedition lasted from September 2019 to October 2020 and measurements were mostly taken between 85 and 88.5ggN. The lidar was integrated into a complex remote-sensing infrastructure aboard the Polarstern. In this article, novel lidar techniques, innovative concepts to study aerosol-cloud interaction in the Arctic, and unique MOSAiC findings will be presented. The highlight of the lidar measurements was the detection of a 10gkm deep wildfire smoke layer over the North Pole region between 7-8gkm and 17-18gkm height with an aerosol optical thickness (AOT) at 532gnm of around 0.1 (in October-November 2019) and 0.05 from December to March. The dual-wavelength Raman lidar technique allowed us to unambiguously identify smoke as the dominating aerosol type in the aerosol layer in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS). An additional contribution to the 532gnm AOT by volcanic sulfate aerosol (Raikoke eruption) was estimated to always be lower than 15g%. The optical and microphysical properties of the UTLS smoke layer are presented in an accompanying paper . This smoke event offered the unique opportunity to study the influence of organic aerosol particles (serving as ice-nucleating particles, INPs) on cirrus formation in the upper troposphere. An example of a closure study is presented to explain our concept of investigating aerosol-cloud interaction in this field. The smoke particles were obviously able to control the evolution of the cirrus system and caused low ice crystal number concentration. After the discussion of two typical Arctic haze events, we present a case study of the evolution of a long-lasting mixed-phase cloud layer embedded in Arctic haze in the free troposphere. The recently introduced dual-field-of-view polarization lidar technique was applied, for the first time, to mixed-phase cloud observations in order to determine the microphysical properties of the water droplets. The mixed-phase cloud closure experiment (based on combined lidar and radar observations) indicated that the observed aerosol levels controlled the number concentrations of nucleated droplets and ice crystals.
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    GARRLiC and LIRIC: Strengths and limitations for the characterization of dust and marine particles along with their mixtures
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : Copernicus, 2017) Tsekeri, Alexandra; Lopatin, Anton; Amiridis, Vassilis; Marinou, Eleni; Igloffstein, Julia; Siomos, Nikolaos; Solomos, Stavros; Kokkalis, Panagiotis; Engelmann, Ronny; Baars, Holger; Gratsea, Myrto; Raptis, Panagiotis I.; Binietoglou, Ioannis; Mihalopoulos, Nikolaos; Kalivitis, Nikolaos; Kouvarakis, Giorgos; Bartsotas, Nikolaos; Kallos, George; Basart, Sara; Schuettemeyer, Dirk; Wandinger, Ulla; Ansmann, Albert; Chaikovsky, Anatoli P.; Dubovik, Oleg
    The Generalized Aerosol Retrieval from Radiometer and Lidar Combined data algorithm (GARRLiC) and the LIdar-Radiometer Inversion Code (LIRIC) provide the opportunity to study the aerosol vertical distribution by combining ground-based lidar and sun-photometric measurements. Here, we utilize the capabilities of both algorithms for the characterization of Saharan dust and marine particles, along with their mixtures, in the south-eastern Mediterranean during the CHARacterization of Aerosol mixtures of Dust and Marine origin Experiment (CHARADMExp). Three case studies are presented, focusing on dust-dominated, marinedominated and dust-marine mixing conditions. GARRLiC and LIRIC achieve a satisfactory characterization for the dust-dominated case in terms of particle microphysical properties and concentration profiles. The marine-dominated and the mixture cases are more challenging for both algorithms, although GARRLiC manages to provide more detailed microphysical retrievals compared to AERONET, while LIRIC effectively discriminates dust and marine particles in its concentration profile retrievals. The results are also compared with modelled dust and marine concentration profiles and surface in situ measurements.
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    Target categorization of aerosol and clouds by continuous multiwavelength-polarization lidar measurements
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : Copernicus, 2017) Baars, Holger; Seifert, Patric; Engelmann, Ronny; Wandinger, Ulla
    Absolute calibrated signals at 532 and 1064 nm and the depolarization ratio from a multiwavelength lidar are used to categorize primary aerosol but also clouds in high temporal and spatial resolution. Automatically derived particle backscatter coefficient profiles in low temporal resolution (30 min) are applied to calibrate the lidar signals. From these calibrated lidar signals, new atmospheric parameters in temporally high resolution (quasi-particle-backscatter coefficients) are derived. By using thresholds obtained from multiyear, multisite EARLINET (European Aerosol Research Lidar Network) measurements, four aerosol classes (small; large, spherical; large, non-spherical; mixed, partly nonspherical) and several cloud classes (liquid, ice) are defined. Thus, particles are classified by their physical features (shape and size) instead of by source. The methodology is applied to 2 months of continuous observations (24 h a day, 7 days a week) with the multiwavelength-Raman-polarization lidar PollyXT during the High-Definition Clouds and Precipitation for advancing Climate Prediction (HD(CP)2) Observational Prototype Experiment (HOPE) in spring 2013. Cloudnet equipment was operated continuously directly next to the lidar and is used for comparison. By discussing three 24 h case studies, it is shown that the aerosol discrimination is very feasible and informative and gives a good complement to the Cloudnet target categorization. Performing the categorization for the 2-month data set of the entire HOPE campaign, almost 1 million pixel (5 min×30 m) could be analysed with the newly developed tool. We find that the majority of the aerosol trapped in the planetary boundary layer (PBL) was composed of small particles as expected for a heavily populated and industrialized area. Large, spherical aerosol was observed mostly at the top of the PBL and close to the identified cloud bases, indicating the importance of hygroscopic growth of the particles at high relative humidity. Interestingly, it is found that on several days non-spherical particles were dispersed from the ground into the atmosphere.