Abstract

Observations are presented which substantiate the hypothesis that significant vertical exchange of ozone (O 3) and aerosol pollutants occurs between the mixed layer and the free troposphere during cumulus cloud convective activity. Flight experiments conducted in July 1981 utilized the airborne UV-DIAL (Ultra-Violet Differential Absorption Lidar) system developed by NASA. This system provides simultaneous range resolved O 3 concentration and aerosol backscatter profiles with high spatial resolution. Data were obtained during the afternoon along east-west and south-north intersecting transects over North Carolina in the presence of active, non-precipitating cumulus clouds. Evening transects were obtained in the area indicated by trajectory calculations to be the current position of the air mass sampled earlier in the day. Space-height cross-section analyses for the evening flight show the cloud ‘debris’ as patterns of aerosol and O 3 in excess of the ambient free tropospheric background. The O 3 excess was approximately the value of the concentration difference between the afternoon mixed layer and free troposphere measured in the afternoon from independent in-situ vertical soundings made by another aircraft.

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