Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net 1680-7367 1680-7375 9 2 2009 10.5194/acpd-9-8817-2009 http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/9/8817/2009/ http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/9/8817/2009/acpd-9-8817-2009.html http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/9/8817/2009/acpd-9-8817-2009.pdf 8817 8856 2009-04-02 NASA LaRC airborne high spectral resolution lidar aerosol measurements during MILAGRO: observations and validation R. R. Rogers raymond.r.rogers@nasa.gov J. W. Hair C. A. Hostetler R. A. Ferrare M. D. Obland A. L. Cook D. B. Harper S. P. Burton Y. Shinozuka C. S. McNaughton A. D. Clarke J. Redemann P. B. Russell J. M. Livingston L. I. Kleinman NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA, USA SSAI/NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA, USA University of Hawaii, Dept. of Oceanography, Honolulu, HI, USA BAERI/NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA SRI International/NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA The NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) airborne High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL) measures vertical profiles of aerosol extinction, backscatter, and depolarization at both 532 nm and 1064 nm. In March of 2006 the HSRL participated in the Megacity Initiative: Local and Global Research Observations (MILAGRO) campaign along with several other suites of instruments deployed on both aircraft and ground based platforms. This paper presents high spatial and vertical resolution HSRL measurements of aerosol extinction and optical depth from MILAGRO and comparisons of those measurements with similar measurements from other sensors and model predictions. HSRL measurements coincident with airborne in situ aerosol scattering and absorption measurements from two different instrument suites on the C-130 and G-1 aircraft, airborne aerosol optical depth (AOD) and extinction measurements from an airborne tracking sunphotometer on the J-31 aircraft, and AOD from a network of ground based Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) sun photometers are presented as a validation of the HSRL aerosol extinction and optical depth products. Regarding the extinction validation, we find bias differences between HSRL and these instruments to be less than 3% (0.01 km^−1) at 532 nm, the wavelength at which the HSRL technique is employed. The rms differences at 532 nm were less than 50% (0.015 km^−1). To our knowledge this is the most comprehensive validation of the HSRL measurement of aerosol extinction and optical depth to date. The observed bias differences in ambient aerosol extinction between HSRL and other measurements is within 15–20% at visible wavelengths, found by previous studies to be the differences observed with current state-of-the-art instrumentation (Schmid et al., 2006). Bond,~T C., Anderson,~T L., and Campbell,~D.: Calibration and intercomparison of filter-based measurements of visible light absorption by aerosols, Aerosol Sci. Technol., 30, 582–600, 1999. Charlson,~R J., Schwartz,~S E., Hales,~J M., Cess,~R D., Coakley,~J A., Hansen,~J E., and Hofmann,~D J.: Climate forcing by anthropogenic aerosols, Science, 255, 423–430, 1992. Cattrall,~C., Reagan,~J., Thome,~K., and Dubovik,~O.: Variability of aerosol and spectral lidar and backscatter and extinction ratios of key aerosol types derived from selected Aerosol Robotic Network locations,~J. Geophys. Res., 110, D10S11, doi:10.1029/2004JD005124, 2005. Chudamani,~S., Spinhirne,~J D., and Clarke,~A D.: Lidar aerosol backscatter cross sections in the 2-νm near-infrared wavelength region, Appl. Opt., 35, 4812–4819, 1996. Fast,~J D., de~Foy,~B., Acevedo~Rosas,~F., Caetano,~E., Carmichael,~G., Emmons,~L., McKenna,~D., Mena,~M., Skamarock,~W., Tie,~X., Coulter,~R L., Barnard,~J C., Wiedinmyer,~C., and Madronich,~S.: A~meteorological overview of the MILAGRO field campaigns, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 7, 2233–2257, 2007. Fernald,~F G.: Analysis of atmospheric lidar observations: some comments, Appl. Opt., 23, 652–653, 1984. Ferrare, R., Turner, D., Clayton, M., et al.: Evaluation of daytime measurements of aerosols and water vapor made by an operational Raman lidar over the Southern Great Plains, J. Geophys. Res., 111, D05S08, doi:10.1029/2005JD005836., 2006. Grell,~G A., Peckham,~S E., Schmitz,~R., McKeen,~S A., Frost,~G., Skamarock,~W C., and Eder,~B.: Fully coupled \qutonline chemistry within the WRF model, Atmos. Environ., 39, 6957–6975, 2005. Hair,~J W., Caldwell,~L M., Krueger,~D A., and She,~C Y.: High-spectral-resolution lidar with iodine-vapor filters: measurement of atmospheric-state and aerosol profiles, Appl. Opt., 40, 5280–5294, 2001. Hair,~J W., Hostetler,~C A., Cook,~A L., Harper,~D B., Ferrare,~R A., Mack,~T L., Welch,~W., Isquierdo,~L R., and Hovis,~F E.: Airborne high spectral resolution lidar for profiling aerosol optical properties, Appl. Opt., 47, 6734–6752, doi:10.1364/AO.47.006734, 2008. Haywood, J. M., Ramaswamy, V., and Donner, L. J.: A~limited-area-model case study of the effects of sub-grid scale variations in relative humidity and cloud upon the direct radiative forcing of sulfate aerosol, Geophys. Res. Lett., 24, 143–146, 1997. Holben, B. N., Tanré, D., Smirnov, A., et al.: An emerging ground-based aerosol climatology: Aerosol optical depth from AERONET,~J. Geophys. Res., 106, 12067–12097, 2001. Jäger,~H.: Long-term record of lidar observations of the stratospheric aerosol layer at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, J. Geophys. Res., 110, D08106, doi:10.1029/2004JD005506, 2005. Kasten,~F.: Visibility in the prephase of condensation, Tellus, 21, 631–635, 1969. Liu,~Z., Hunt,~W., Vaughan,~M., Hostetler,~C., McGill,~M., Powell,~K., Winker,~D., and Hu,~Y.: Estimating random errors due to shot noise in backscatter lidar observations, Appl. Opt., 45, 4437–4447, 2006. Livingston,~J M., Redemann,~J., Russell,~P B., Torres,~O., Veihelmann,~B., Veefkind,~P., Braak,~R., Smirnov,~A., Remer,~L., Bergstrom,~R W., Coddington,~O., Schmidt,~K S., Pilewskie,~P., Johnson,~R., and Zhang,~Q.: Comparison of aerosol optical depths from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on Aura with results from airborne sunphotometry, other space and ground measurements, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., submitted, 2009. McGill,~M J., Hlavka,~D L., Hart,~W D., Welton,~E J., and Campbell,~J R.: Airborne lidar measurements of aerosol optical properties during SAFARI-2000,~J. Geophys. Res., 108(D13), 8493, doi:10.1029/2002JD002370, 2003. McNaughton,~C S., Clarke,~A D., Kapustin,~V., Shinozuka,~Y., Howell,~S G., Anderson,~B E., Winstead,~E., Dibb,~J., Scheuer,~E., Cohen,~R C., Wooldridge,~P., Perring,~A., Huey,~L G., Kim,~S., Jimenez,~J L., Dunlea,~E J., DeCarlo,~P F., Wennberg,~P O., Crounse,~J D., Weinheimer,~A J., and Flocke,~F.: Observations of heterogeneous reactions between Asian pollution and mineral dust over the Eastern North Pacific during INTEX-B, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., in press, 2009 Molina,~L T., Madronich,~S., Gaffney,~J. et al.: An overview of MILAGRO 2006 campaign: Mexico City emissions and its transport and transformation, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., in preparation, 2009. Piironen,~P. and Eloranta,~E W.: Demonstration of a~high-spectral-resolution lidar based on an iodine absorption filter, Opt. Lett., 19, 234–236, 1994. Redemann,~J., Masonis,~S J., Schmid,~B., Anderson,~T L., Russell,~P B., Livingston,~J M., Dubovik,~O., and Clarke,~A D.: Clear-column closure studies of aerosols and water vapor aboard the NCAR C-130 during ACE-Asia, 2001, J. Geophys. Res., 108(D23), 8655, doi:10.1029/2003JD003442, 2003. Russell,~P B., Livingston,~J M., Redemann,~J., Schmid,~B., Ramirez,~S., Eilers,~S A., Kahn,~R., Chu,~A., Remer,~L., Quinn,~P K., Rood,~M J., and Wang,~W.: Multi-grid-cell validation of satellite aerosol property retrievals in INTEX/ITCT/ICARTT 2004, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D12S09, doi: 10.1029/2006JD007606, 2007. Satheesh, S. K.: Letter to the Editor Aerosol radiative forcing over land: effect of surface and cloud reflection, Ann. Geophys., 20, 2105–2109, 2002. Schmid,~B., Hegg,~D A., Wang,~J., Bates,~D., Redemann,~J., Russell,~P B., Livingston,~J M., Jonsson,~H H., Welton,~E J., Seinfeld,~J H., Flagan,~R C., Covert,~D S., Dubovik,~O., and Jefferson,~A.: Column closure studies of lower tropospheric aerosol and water vapor during ACE-Asia using airborne Sun photometer and airborne in situ and ship-based lidar measurements, J. Geophys. Res., 108(D23), doi:10.1029/2002JD003361, 2003. Schmid,~B., Ferrare,~R., Flynn,~C., Elleman,~R., Covert,~D., Strawa,~A., Welton,~E., Turner,~D., Jonsson,~H., Redemann,~J., Eilers,~J., Ricci,~K., Hallar,~A G., Clayton,~M., Michalsky,~J., Smirnov,~A., Holben,~B., and Barnard,~J.: How well do state-of-the-art techniques measuring the vertical profile of tropospheric aerosol extinction compare?, J. Geophys. Res., 111, D05S07, doi:10.1029/2005JD005837, 2006. Sprent,~P. and Dolby,~G.: The geometric mean functional relationship, Biometrics, 36, 547–550, 1980. Solomon,~S., Qin,~D., Manning,~M., Chen,~Z., Marquis,~M., Averyt,~K B., Tignor,~M., and Miller,~H L.: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA. Sugimoto~N. and Lee,~C H.: Characteristics of dust aerosols inferred from lidar depolarization measurements at two wavelengths, Appl. Opt., 45, 7468–7474, 2006. Torres,~O., Bhartia,~P K., Herman,~J R., Ahmad,~Z., and Gleason,~J.: Derivation of aerosol properties from satellite measurements of backscattered ultraviolet radiation: Theoretical basis, J. Geophys. Res., 103(D14), 17099–17110, 1998. Virkkula,~A., Ahlquist,~N C., Covert,~D S., Arnott,~W P., Sheridan,~P J., Quinn,~P K., Coffman, Modification,~D J.: Calibration and a~field test of an instrument for measuring light absorption by particles, Aerosol Sci. Technol., 39, 68–83, doi:10.1080/027868290901963, 2005.