Lidar monitoring of the aerosol content in the near-ground atmospheric layers over Sofia

Abstract

Lidar measurements provide possibility to determine and localize the sources of aerosol emissions in the air, to determine the presence of airborne transport of dust in the atmosphere, to track in real-time aerosol movement above vast territories [1-4]. Presently, along with building networks of ground lidar stations, such as the European Aerosol Research Lidar Network (EARLINET), it becomes more and more important to develop and refine the lidar methods of processing the data from measurements to retrieve the necessary information [5]. The present study comments on results of aerosols monitoring in the lowest atmospheric layers above Sofia by using lidar remote sensing. More than 20 lidar measurements were carried out in the period January – June 2022. The lidar system emitted laser pulses nearly horizontally within the planetary boundary layer (PBL); the reflected pulses were collected to calculate the range-corrected signals and to produce color-coded time-distance diagrams. These diagrams, superimposed on a map of the city to illustrate the location of the aerosol layers were published on the website of the Laser Radar Laboratory of the Institute of Electronics (IE-BAS) at: http://www.ie-bas.org/Departments/LidarData_Horizont/Quicklooks-Horizont.htm.