Demonstration of Aerosol Property Profiling by Multiwavelength Lidar under Varying Relative Humidity Conditions

Abstract

The feasibility of using a multiwavelength Mie?Raman lidar based on a tripled Nd:YAG laser for profiling aerosol physical parameters in the planetary boundary layer (PBL) under varying conditions of relative humidity (RH) is studied. The lidar quantifies three aerosol backscattering and two extinction coefficients and from these optical data the particle parameters such as concentration, size, and complex refractive index are retrieved through inversion with regularization. The column-integrated, lidar-derived parameters are compared with results from the AERONET sun photometer. The lidar and sun photometer agree well in the characterization of the fine-mode parameters, however the lidar shows less sensitivity to coarse mode. The lidar results reveal a strong dependence of particle properties on RH. The height regions with enhanced RH are characterized by an increase of backscattering and extinction coefficient and a decrease in the Ångström exponent coinciding with an increase in the particle size. The hygroscopic growth factor calculated for a select case is consistent with previous literature results despite the lack of collocated radiosonde data. These results demonstrate the potential of the multiwavelength Raman lidar technique for the study of aerosol humidification process.