Abstract
A bi-static short-range elastic backscatter micro-lidar, named Colibri, has been developed for quantitative aerosol profiling with high range and temporal resolution within the first hundred meters. The geometric (i.e., overlap) and radiometric (i.e., lidar constant) calibrations were performed along with dark current and background noise characterizations. Results of a measurement campaign have demonstrated the capability of our system to characterize aerosol plumes with high range-resolution (<10 cm) in the short-range close to their emission sources (from 10 m). To this aim, fog-oil aerosol plumes were generated in a tunnel and characterized by using an optical particle counter. A forward inverse method without boundary conditions is presented for inverting short-range lidar profiles when no reference molecular zone is available. Lastly, we report the different retrieved lidar products, namely the distribution of aerosol layers, radiative properties (i.e., backscatter profiles), and the microphysical properties (i.e., number concentration profiles). For the validation of the proposed methodology, the lidar products were compared with measurements from the optical particle counter. Lastly, the impact of calibration errors on the lidar products is discussed through an uncertainty analysis.
Highlights
Aerosols are suspended particulate matter in the atmosphere and are emitted through a wide range of natural or anthropogenic processes and play an important role in the Earth’s radiative balance
The present work has demonstrated the feasibility of our self-designed short-range elastic backscatter micro-lidar to provide relevant properties of aerosol plumes, including radiative and microphysical properties
This campaign allowed us to monitor the dynamics of aerosol plumes and to retrieve quantitative micro-lidar products, including aerosol backscatter and number concentration profiles as a result of a rigorous calibration and a dedicated inverse method without any boundary condition
Summary
Aerosols are suspended particulate matter in the atmosphere and are emitted through a wide range of natural or anthropogenic processes and play an important role in the Earth’s radiative balance. A recent need has been raised for short-range elastic backscatter lidars with high range-resolution and temporal-resolution to characterize aerosols close to their emission sources by decreasing the minimal measurement height [6,7,8] These profiles are valuable in the fields of environment and air quality for accurate modeling of aerosol dispersion during events such as industrial plumes [9,10] or aerosol events in the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) [11,12,13,14]. Up to now, aerosol lidars remain scarce for probing the atmosphere in the first hundred meters with a range-resolution lower than one meter
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