Retrieval of UVB aerosol extinction profiles from the ground-based Langley Mobile Ozone Lidar (LMOL) system

Aerosols emitted from wildfires are becoming one of the main sources of poor air quality on the US mainland. Their extinction in UVB (the wavelength range from 280 to 315 nm) is difficult to retrieve using simple lidar techniques because of the impact of ozone (O-3) absorption and the lack of information about the lidar ratios at those wavelengths. Improving the characterization of lidar ratios at the above-mentioned wavelengths will enable aerosol monitoring with different instruments and will also permit the correction of the aerosol impact on O-3 lidar data. The 2018 Long Island Sound Tropospheric Ozone Study (LISTOS) campaign in the New York City region utilized a comprehensive set of instruments that enabled the characterization of the lidar ratio for UVB aerosol retrieval. The NASA Langley High Altitude Lidar Observatory (HALO) produced the 532 nm aerosol extinction product along with the lidar ratio for this wavelength using a high-spectral-resolution technique. The Langley Mobile Ozone Lidar (LMOL) is able to compute the extinction provided that it has the lidar ratio at 292 nm. The lidar ratio at 292 nm and the Angstrom exponent (AE) between 292 and 532 nm for the aerosols were retrieved by comparing the two observations using an optimization technique. We evaluate the aerosol extinction error due to the selection of these parameters, usually done empirically for 292 nm lasers. This is the first known 292 nm aerosol product intercomparison between HALO and Tropospheric Ozone Lidar Network (TOLNet) O-3 lidar. It also provides the characterization of the UVB optical properties of aerosols in the lower troposphere affected by transported wildfire emissions.

Automated summary

Aerosols emitted from wildfires are a major source of poor air quality in the US mainland, but are difficult to monitor accurately using lidar techniques. This study improved the characterization of lidar ratios for UVB aerosol retrieval and evaluated the optical properties of aerosols affected by wildfire emissions in the lower troposphere. The research enables better monitoring and correction of aerosol impact on O-3 lidar data.