Measurement report: Spectral and statistical analysis of aerosol hygroscopic growth from multi-wavelength lidar measurements in Barcelona, Spain

This paper presents the estimation of the hygroscopic growth parameter of atmospheric aerosols retrieved with a multi-wavelength lidar, a micro-pulse lidar (MPL) and daily radiosoundings in the coastal region of Barcelona, Spain. The hygroscopic growth parameter, gamma, parameterizes the magnitude of the scattering enhancement in terms of the backscatter coefficient following Hand parameterization. After searching for time-colocated lidar and radiosounding measurements (performed twice a day, all year round at 00:00 and 12:00 UTC), a strict criterion-based procedure (limiting the variations of magnitudes such as water vapor mixing ratio (WMVR), potential temperature, wind speed and direction) is applied to select only cases of aerosol hygroscopic growth. A spectral analysis (at the wavelengths of 355, 532 and 1064 nm) is performed with the multi-wavelength lidar, and a climatological one, at the wavelength of 532 nm, with the database of both lidars. The spectral analysis shows that below 2 km the regime of local pollution and sea salt y decreases with increasing wavelengths. Since the 355 nm wavelength is sensitive to smaller aerosols, this behavior could indicate slightly more hygroscopic aerosols present at smaller size ranges. Above 2 km (the regime of regional pollution and residual sea salt) the values of y at 532 nm are nearly the same as those below 2 km, and its spectral behavior is flat. This analysis and others from the literature are put together in a table presenting, for the first time, a spectral analysis of the hygroscopic growth parameter of a large variety of atmospheric aerosol hygroscopicities ranging from low (pure mineral dust, gamma <0.2) to high (pure sea salt, gamma > 1.0) hygroscopicity. The climatological analysis shows that, at 532 nm, gamma is rather constant all year round and has a large monthly standard deviation, suggesting the presence of aerosols with different hygroscopic properties all year round. The annual gamma is 0.55 +/- 0.23. The height of the layer where hygroscopic growth was calculated shows an annual cycle with a maximum in summer and a minimum in winter. Former works describing the presence of recirculation layers of pollutants injected at various heights above the planetary boundary layer (PBL) may explain why gamma, unlike the height of the layer where hygroscopic growth was calculated, is not season-dependent. The subcategorization of the whole database into No cloud and Below-cloud cases reveals a large difference of gamma in autumn between both categories (0.71 and 0.33, respectively), possibly attributed to a depletion of inorganics at the point of activation into cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) in the Below-cloud cases. Our work calls for more in situ measurements to synergetically complete such studies based on remote sensing.

Automated summary

This paper presents a method for estimating the hygroscopic growth parameter of atmospheric aerosols using a multi-wavelength lidar and radiosoundings. The results show variations in aerosol hygroscopicity at different heights and wavelengths, as well as differences between below-cloud and no-cloud cases. More in situ measurements are needed to further support remote sensing studies.