Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net 1680-7367 1680-7375 9 5 2009 10.5194/acpd-9-18745-2009 http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/9/18745/2009/ http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/9/18745/2009/acpd-9-18745-2009.html http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/9/18745/2009/acpd-9-18745-2009.pdf 18745 18792 2009-09-10 AMALi – the Airborne Mobile Aerosol Lidar for Arctic research I. S. Stachlewska R. Neuber A. Lampert C. Ritter G. Wehrle Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Telegrafenberg A43, 14473 Potsdam, Germany Institute of Geophysics, Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw, Pasteura 7, 02-093 Warsaw, Poland Laboratory of Atmospheric Chemistry, Paul Scherrer Institut, 5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland The Airborne Mobile Aerosol Lidar (AMALi) is an instrument developed at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research for a trouble-free operation under the challenging weather conditions at the Earth's polar regions. Since 2003 the AMALi has been successfully deployed for measurements in the ground-based installation and the zenith- or nadir-aiming airborne configurations during several scientific campaigns in the Arctic. The lidar provides profiles of the total backscatter at two wavelengths, from which aerosol and cloud properties are derived. It measures also the linear depolarization of the backscattered return, allowing for the discrimination of thermodynamic cloud phase and the identification of the presence of non-spherical aerosol particles. This paper presents the capability characteristics and performance of the past and present state of the AMALi system, as well as discusses the ground-based and airborne evaluation schemes applied to invert the data. Ansmann, A., Riebesell, M., and Weitkamp, C.: Measurements of aerosol profiles with Raman lidar, Opt. Lett., 15, 746–748, 1990. Ansmann, A., Wandinger, U., Riebesell, M., Weitkamp, C., and Michaelis, W.: Independent measurements of extinction and backscatter profiles in cirrus clouds by using a combined Raman elastic-backscatter Lidar, Appl. Opt., 31, 7113–7131, 1992. Behrendt, A. and Nakamura, T.: Calculation of the calibration constant of polarization lidar and its dependency on atmospheric temperature, Opt. Express, 10, 805–817, 2002. Dethloff, K., Rinke, A., Lehmann, R., Christensen, J.H., Botzet, M., and Machenhauer, B.: Regional climate model of the Arctic atmosphere, J. Geophys. Res., 101(D8), 23401–23422, 1996. Dörnbrack, A., Stachlewska, I. S., Ritter, C., and Neuber, R.: Aerosol distribution around Svalbard during intense easterly winds, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 9, 16441–16481, 2009. Ehrlich, A., Bierwirth, E., Wendisch, M., Gayet, J.-F., Mioche, G., Lampert, A., and Heintzenberg, J.: Cloud phase identification of Arctic boundary-layer clouds from airborne spectral reflection measurements: test of three approaches, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 8, 7493–7505, 2008. Fernald, F. G.: Analysis of atmospheric lidar observations: some comments, Appl. Opt., 23, 652–653, 1984. Gayet, J.-F., Stachlewska, I. S., Jourdan, O., Shcherbakov, V., Schwarzenboeck, A., and Neuber, R.: Microphysical and optical properties of precipitating drizzle and ice particles obtained from alternated lidar and in situ measurements, Ann. Geophys., 25, 1487–1497, 2007. Goodman, J. W.: Statistical Optics, J Wiley & Sons, 1985. Klett, J. D.: Stable analytical inversion solution for processing lidar returns, Appl. Opt., 20, 211–220, 1981. Klett, J. D.: Lidar inversions with variable backscatter/extinction values, Appl. Opt., 24, 211–220, 1985. Kovalev, V. A. and Eichinger, W. E.: Elastic Lidar: Theory, Practice, and Analysis Methods, J Wiley & Sons, ISBN~0-471-20171-5, 2004. Lampert, A., Ehrlich, A., Dörnbrack, A., Jourdan, O., Gayet, J.-F., Mioche, G., Shcherbakov, V., Ritter, C., and Wendisch, M.: Microphysical and radiative characterization of a subvisible midlevel Arctic ice cloud by airborne observations - a case study, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 9, 2647–2661, 2009a. Lampert, A., Ritter, C., Hoffmann, A., Gayet, J.-F., Mioche, G., Ehrlich, A., Dörnbrack, A., Wendisch, M., and Shiobara, M.: Observations of boundary layer, mixed-phase and multi-layer Arctic clouds with different lidar systems during ASTAR~2007, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 9, 15125–15179, 2009b. Matthias, V., Böckmann, C., Freudenthaler, V., Pappalardo, G., and Bösenberg, J.: Lidar Intercomparisons on algorithm and system level in the frame of EARLINET, Hamburg, 337, ISSN~0937~1060, 2002. Richter, A., Gayet, J.-F., Mioche, G., Ehrlich, A., and Dörnbrack, A.: Mixed-Phase Clouds in the Arctic, a Synopsis of Airborne Lidar, In-Situ, and Albedometer Observations, complemented by Meteorological Analyses, in: Proceedings of 24th International Laser Radar Conference (ILRC~2008), 2, 881–884, 2008. Rinke, A., Dethloff, K., and Fortmann, M.: Regional climate effects of Arctic Haze, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31(16), L16202, doi:10.1029/2004GL020318, 2004. Ritter, C., Kirsche, A., and Neuber, R.: Tropospheric Aerosol Characterized by a Raman Lidar over Spitsbergen, in: Proceedings of 22nd International Laser Radar Conference (ILRC~2004), edited by: Pappalardo, G. and Amodeo, A., ESA~SP-561, 1, 459–462, 2004. Ritter, C., Stachlewska, I. S., and Neuber, R.: Application of the two-stream evaluation for a case study of Arctic Haze over Spitsbergen, in: Proceedings of 23nd International Laser Radar Conference (ILRC~2006), edited by: Nagasawa, C. and Sugimoto, N., ISBN~4-9902916-0-3, 1, 507–510, 2006. Sasano, Y., Browell, E. V., and Ismail, S.: Error caused by using a constant extinction/backscattering ratio in the lidar solution, Appl. Opt., 24, 3929–3932, 1985. Shimoda, K.: Introduction to Laser Physics, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 1986. Shipley, S. T., Tracy, D. H., Eloranta, E. W., Trauger, J. T., Sroga, J. T., Roesler, F. L., and Weinman, J. A.: A High Spectral Resolution Lidar to measure optical scattering properties of atmospheric aerosols, Part~I: Instrumentation and theory, Appl. Opt., 23, 3716–3724, 1983. Sicherheitstechnische Festlegungen für Lasergeräte und Anlagen, VDE-Verlag Beuth, ISSN~0178-224X, 1998. Stachlewska, I. S., Wehrle, G., Stein, B., and Neuber, R.: Airborne Mobile Aerosol Lidar for measurements of Arctic aerosols, in: Proceedings of 22nd International Laser Radar Conference (ILRC~2004), edited by: Pappalardo, G. and Amodeo, A., ESA~SP-561, 1, 87–89, 2004. Stachlewska, I. S., Ritter, C., and Neuber, R.: Application of the two-stream inversion algorithm for retrieval of extinction, backscatter and lidar ratio for clean and polluted Arctic air, in: Proceedings of SPIE, 5584, 03/1–03/8, 2005. Stachlewska, I. S. and Dörnbrack, A.: Application of iterative airborne lidar inversion and its interpretation by means of ECMWF operational analyses, in: Reviewed and Revised Papers Presented at the 23rd International Laser Radar Conference (ILRC~2006), 1, 471–474, 2006a. Stachlewska, I. S.: Investigation of tropospheric arctic aerosol and mixed-phase clouds using airborne lidar technique, PhD Thesis, University of Potsdam, opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2006/698/, 2006b. Stachlewska, I. S., Gayet, J.-F., Duroure, C., Schwarzenboeck, A., Jourdan, O., Shcherbakov, V., and Neuber, R.: Observations of mixed-phase clouds using airborne lidar and in-situ instrumentation, in: Reviewed and Revised Papers Presented at the 23rd International Laser Radar Conference (ILRC~2006), 1, 325–328, 2006c. Stachlewska, I. S. and Ritter, C.: On retrieval of lidar extinction profiles using Two-Stream and Raman techniques, submitted to Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 2009. Treffeisen, R., Herber, A., Ström, J., Shiobara, M., Yamanouchi, T., Yamagata, S., Holmen, K., Kriews, M., and Schrems, O.: Interpretation of Arctic Aerosol Properties using Cluster Analysis applied to observations in the Svalbard Area, Tellus, 56B(5), 457–476, 2004. Winker, D. M., Hunt, B. H., and McGill, M. J.: Initial performance assessment of CALIOP, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L19803, doi:10.1029/2007GL030135, 2007. Yamanouchi, T., Treffeisen, R., Herber, A., Shiobara, M., Yamagata, S., Hara, K., Sato, K., Yabuki, M., Tomikawa, Y., Rinke, A., Neuber, R., Schumacher, R., Kriews, M., Ström, J., Schrems, O., and Gernandt, H.: Arctic Study of Tropospheric Aerosol and Radiation (ASTAR) 2000: Arctic haze case study, Tellus, 57B, 141–152, 2005.