Abstract
Abstract. The paper presents an investigation of aerosol seasonal variations in several urban–industrial regions in Ukraine. Our analysis of seasonal variations of optical and physical aerosol parameters is based on the sun-photometer 2008–2013 data from two urban ground-based AERONET (AErosol RObotic NETwork) sites in Ukraine (Kyiv, Lugansk) as well as on satellite POLDER instrument data for urban–industrial areas in Ukraine. We also analyzed the data from one AERONET site in Belarus (Minsk) in order to compare with the Ukrainian sites. Aerosol amount and optical depth (AOD) values in the atmosphere columns over the large urbanized areas like Kyiv and Minsk have maximum values in the spring (April–May) and late summer (August), whereas minimum values are observed in late autumn. The results show that fine-mode particles are most frequently detected during the spring and late summer seasons. The analysis of the seasonal AOD variations over the urban–industrial areas in the eastern and central parts of Ukraine according to both ground-based and POLDER data exhibits the similar traits. The seasonal variation similarity in the regions denotes the resemblance in basic aerosol sources that are closely related to properties of aerosol particles. The behavior of basic aerosol parameters in the western part of Ukraine is different from eastern and central regions and shows an earlier appearance of the spring and summer AOD maxima. Spectral single-scattering albedo, complex refractive index and size distribution of aerosol particles in the atmosphere column over Kyiv have different behavior for warm (April–October) and cold seasons. The seasonal features of fine and coarse aerosol particle behavior over the Kyiv site were analyzed. A prevailing influence of the fine-mode particles on the optical properties of the aerosol layer over the region has been established. The back-trajectory and cluster analysis techniques were applied to study the seasonal back trajectories and prevailing directions of the arrived air mass for the Kyiv and Minsk sites.
Highlights
The NO2 impact is considered in the AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) algorithms using the satellite data from OMI, SCIAMACHY, and GOME instruments
Using POLDER data we investigated seasonal variation of the aerosol optical depth (AOD) (865 nm) and Ångström exponent (670–865 nm) values over the Ukrainian urban–industrial areas centered on the cities Kyiv, Lugansk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Lviv, and Rivne and on the Belarus city Minsk (Fig. 4)
The size distribution and volume concentration, the single-scattering albedo (SSA) and complex refractive index (RI), the absorption AOD and the extinction AOD retrieved by AERONET inversion algorithm were used for aerosol behavior analysis at the Kyiv site
Summary
Aerosol seasonal variations have been investigated in different regions with various ground-based (Gerasopoulos et al, 2007; Jaroslawski and Pietruczuk, 2010; Rana et al, 2009; Andrews et al, 2011; Leskinen et al, 2012; Liu et al, 2012; Pietruczuk and Chaikovsky, 2012), satellite (e.g., Barnaba and Gobbi, 2004; Song et al, 2008), combined groundbased and satellite (e.g., Zawadzka et al, 2013; Bovchaliuk et al, 2013), and balloon-borne (Hara et al, 2011, 2013) techniques for aerosol measurements. This suggests that the behavior of the aerosol content in this region is governed mainly by the aerosol transport. In continuation of our previous study, we focus here on an analysis of seasonal aerosol properties and dynamics over the urban–industrial areas of Ukraine based on AERONET sites and POLDER/PARASOL satellite imaging spectroradiometer data. Unlike the preceding paper (Bovchaliuk et al, 2013) we analyze the variation of the total AOD, the fine- and coarse-mode components of the AOD and volume concentration, the spectral SSA, and the refractive index (RI) for AERONET sites in Ukraine and expand the analysis of the POLDER data to a larger number of urban areas.
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