A New Algorithm of Atmospheric Boundary Layer Height Determined from Polarization Lidar

Accurately determining the atmospheric boundary layer height (ABLH) is needed when one is addressing the air quality-related issues in highly urbanized areas, as well as when one is investigating issues that are related to the emission and transport of dust aerosols over the source region. In this study, we propose a new ABLH retrieval method, which is named ADEILP (ABLH that is determined by polarization lidar); it is based on the short-term polarized lidar observation that took place during the intensive field campaign in July 2021 in Tazhong, the hinterland of Taklimakan Desert. Furthermore, we conducted comparisons between the ABLH that was identified using a radiosonde (ABLH(sonde)), the ABLH that was identified by ERA5 (ABLH(ERA5)) and the ABHL that was identified by ADELIP (ABLH(ADELIP)), and we discussed the implications of the dust events. The ADELIP method boasts remarkable advancements in two parts: (1) the lidar volume linear depolarization ratio (VLDR) that represented the aerosol type was adopted, which is very effective in distinguishing between the different types of boundary layers (e.g., mixing layer and residual layer); (2) the idea of breaking up the entire layer into sub-layers was applied on the basis of the continues wavelet transform (CWT) method, which is favorable when one is considering the effect of fine stratification in an aerosol layer. By combining the appropriate height limitations, these factors ensured that there was good robustness of the ADELIP method, thereby enabling it to deal with complex boundary layer structures. The comparisons revealed that ABLH(ADELIP) shows good consistency with ABLH(sonde) and ABLH(ERA5) for non-dust events. Nevertheless, the ADELIP method overestimated the stable boundary layer and underestimated the heights of the mixing layer. The dust events seem to be a possible reason for the great difference between ABLH(ERA5) and ABLH(sonde). Thus, it is worth suggesting that the influence that is caused by the differences of the vertical profile in the ERA5 product should be carefully considered when the issues on dust events are involved. Overall, these findings support the climatological analysis of the atmosphere boundary layer and the vertical distribution characteristics of aerosols over typical climatic zones.

Automated summary

This study proposes a new method to determine the atmospheric boundary layer height (ABLH) and compares it with existing methods. The results show that the new method is consistent with the existing methods for non-dust events, but overestimates the stable boundary layer and underestimates the heights of the mixing layer.