Optical Properties of North Atlantic Aerosols Through a compact dual-wavelength depolarization Lidar Observations

Abstract

We present a characterization of the optical properties of different aerosol types based on data collected using a compact dual-wavelength depolarization elastic lidar (532 and 808 nm, CIMEL CE376). We evaluate the vertical distribution and temporal evolution of a variety of aerosols observed in the subtropical North Atlantic region, covering from Saharan dust outbreaks and volcanic aerosols to fresh and aged wildfires, observed between August 2021 and August 2023, using a modified two-wavelength Klett inversion method to derive the aerosol backscatter and extinction coefficients from CE376 lidar observations. We assessed the performance of the CE376 lidar during an intercomparison campaign with an MPL-4B lidar (MPLNET) while collocated at the facilities of the Izaña Atmospheric Research Centre (Canary Islands, Spain). Both instruments depicted the vertical aerosol structure similarly. The main differences were attributed to errors arising from the determination of the overlap function and the depolarization calibration in each instrument and the larger effect of the solar background on the CE376 system during daylight.