Abstract
Mineral dust influences climate and weather by direct and indirect effects. Surrounded by dust sources, Central Asian countries are affected by atmospheric mineral dust on a regular basis. Climate change effects like glacier retreat and desertification are prevalent in Central Asia as well. Therefore, the role of dust in the climate system in Central Asia needs to be clarified and quantified. During the Central Asian Dust EXperiment (CADEX) first lidar observations in Tajikistan were conducted. Long-term vertically resolved aerosol measurements were performed with the multiwavelength polarization Raman lidar PollyXT from March 2015 to August 2016 in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. In this contribution, a climatology of the aerosol layer heights is presented, which was retrieved from the 18-month lidar measurements. Automatic detection based on backscatter coefficient thresholds were used to retrieve the aerosol layer heights and yield similar layer heights as manual layer height determination. The significant aerosol layer height has a maximum in summer and a minimum in winter. The highest layers occurred in spring, but in summer uppermost layer heights above 6 km AGL are frequent, too.
Highlights
Central Asia is frequently affected by atmospheric mineral dust due to its location in the center of the global dust belt, that is reaching from the Sahara to the Gobi desert [1]
This contribution presents a climatology of the aerosol layer heights retrieved from 18month lidar measurements during the Central Asian Dust EXperiment (CADEX) campaign in Dushanbe, Tajikistan
In winter and autumn the significant aerosol layer height is between 2 km and occasionally 5 km above Tajikistan
Summary
Central Asia is frequently affected by atmospheric mineral dust due to its location in the center of the global dust belt, that is reaching from the Sahara to the Gobi desert [1]. Aerosol observations in Tajikistan are highly important to understand regional and global transport of mineral dust and its effects on climate. The optical and geometric properties of these dust layers are a crucial information for radiativetransfer calculations [10], while the thinner high-altitude dust layers are essential for aerosol-cloud interaction studies [11, 12]. This contribution presents a climatology of the aerosol layer heights retrieved from 18month lidar measurements during the CADEX campaign in Dushanbe, Tajikistan
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