Dual-wavelength Lidar Research Articles

Dual-Wavelength LiDAR with a Single-Pixel Detector Based on the Time-Stretched Method.

In the fields of agriculture and forestry, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is a critical indicator for assessing the physiological state of plants. Traditional imaging sensors can only collect two-dimensional vegetation distribution data, while dual-wavelength LiDAR technology offers the capability to capture vertical distribution information, which is essential for forest structure recovery and precision agriculture management. However, existing LiDAR systems face challenges in detecting echoes at two wavelengths, typically relying on multiple detectors or array sensors, leading to high costs, bulky systems, and slow detection rates. This study introduces a time-stretched method to separate two laser wavelengths in the time dimension, enabling a more cost-effective and efficient dual-spectral (600 nm and 800 nm) LiDAR system. Utilizing a supercontinuum laser and a single-pixel detector, the system incorporates specifically designed time-stretched transmission optics, enhancing the efficiency of NDVI data collection. We validated the ranging performance of the system, achieving an accuracy of approximately 3 mm by collecting data with a high sampling rate oscilloscope. Furthermore, by detecting branches, soil, and leaves in various health conditions, we evaluated the system's performance. The dual-wavelength LiDAR can detect variations in NDVI due to differences in chlorophyll concentration and water content. Additionally, we used the radar equation to analyze the actual scene, clarifying the impact of the incidence angle on reflectance and NDVI. Scanning the Red Sumach, we obtained its NDVI distribution, demonstrating its physical characteristics. In conclusion, the proposed dual-wavelength LiDAR based on the time-stretched method has proven effective in agricultural and forestry applications, offering a new technological approach for future precision agriculture and forest management.

Profiling of particulate matter transport flux based on dual-wavelength lidar and ensemble learning algorithm

Transport flux (TF) is a significant particulate matter (PM) characteristic. This paper introduces an advanced dual-wavelength polarization aerosol and wind lidar (Wind Flux 3000) capable of independently observing the PM TF. The PM TF observation capability, which allows for simultaneous aerosol and wind measurements, was achieved by integrating a Mie-polarization particle lidar module and a coherent Doppler wind lidar module into a single lidar system. The primary measurement products of the Wind Flux 3000 include particulate extinction coefficient at 532 nm and 1550 nm, volume linear depolarization ratio at 532 nm (δp,532), wind speed (WS), wind direction (WD), vertical speed (VS), turbulence intensity (TI) and mixing layer height (MLH), retrieved by physical and proven algorithms. The PM concentration scales with the measured optical parameters and is also impacted by other environmental or meteorological parameters. Under the framework of the potential relationship between the PM concentration and the above parameters, the PM2.5 and PM10 concentration retrieval models were established using the stacking method of the ensemble learning technique; the models were trained using the in-situ data as true values, while the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at 1550 nm, δp,532, WS, WD, VS, the standard deviation of VS, TI, MLH provided by the Wind Flux 3000, as well as the relative humidity and temperature from ERA5, the hours of the day, and a “dust day” flag were used as inputs. The R2, RMSE, and MAE for the comparison between the predicted and true values of the PM2.5 test set are 0.857, 13.52 µg · m- 3, 9.16 µg · m- 3, and those of the PM10 test set are 0.926, 24.75 µg · m- 3, 14.39 µg · m- 3, respectively. The performance of the PM2.5 and PM10 concentration retrieval ensemble models is better than that of individual machine learning algorithms and better than that of the linear model. On 15th March 2023, a strong southeastward dust transport process with dust plume deposition was observed at Qingdao by the Wind Flux 3000. The analyses of the dust event demonstrated the Wind Flux 3000's ability to evaluate the transports of PM quantitatively.

Airborne dual-wavelength waveform LiDAR improves species classification accuracy of boreal broadleaved and coniferous trees

Tree species identification constitutes a bottleneck in remote sensing applications. Waveform LiDAR has been shown to offer potential over discrete-return observations, and we assessed if the combination of two-wavelength waveform data can lead to further improvements. A total of 2532 trees representing seven living and dead conifer and deciduous species classes found in Hyytiälä forests in southern Finland were included in the experiments. LiDAR data was acquired by two single-wavelength sensors. The 1064-nm and 1550-nm data were radiometrically corrected to enable range-normalization using the radar equation. Pulses were traced through the canopy, and by applying 3D crown models, the return waveforms were assigned to individual trees. Crown models and a terrain model enabled a further split of the waveforms to strata representing the crown, understory and ground segments. Different geometric and radiometric waveform attributes were extracted per return pulse and aggregated to tree-level mean and standard deviation features. We analyzed the effect of tree size on the features, the correlation between features and the between-species differences of the waveform features. Feature importance for species classification was derived using F-test and the Random Forest algorithm. Classification tests showed significant improvement in overall accuracy (74→83% with 7 classes, 88→91% with 4 classes) when the 1064-nm and 1550-nm features were merged. Most features were not invariant to tree size, and the dependencies differed between species and LiDAR wavelength. The differences were likely driven by factors such as bark reflectance, height growth induced structural changes near the treetop as well as foliage density in old trees.

Evaluation of a New Lightweight UAV-Borne Topo-Bathymetric LiDAR for Shallow Water Bathymetry and Object Detection.

Airborne LiDAR bathymetry (ALB) has proven to be an effective technology for shallow water mapping. To collect data with a high point density, a lightweight dual-wavelength LiDAR system mounted on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) was developed. This study presents and evaluates the system using the field data acquired from a flight test in Dazhou Island, China. In the precision and accuracy assessment, the local fitted planes extracted from the water surface points and the multibeam echosounder data are used as a reference for water surface and bottom measurements, respectively. For the bathymetric performance comparison, the study area is also measured with an ALB system installed on the manned aerial platform. The object detection capability of the system is examined with placed small cubes. Results show that the fitting precision of the water surface is 0.1227 m, and the absolute accuracy of the water bottom is 0.1268 m, both of which reach a decimeter level. Compared to the manned ALB system, the UAV-borne system provides higher resolution data with an average point density of 42 points/m2 and maximum detectable depth of 1.7–1.9 Secchi depths. In the point cloud of the water bottom, the existence of a 1-m target cube and the rough shape of a 2-m target cube are clearly observed at a depth of 12 m. The system shows great potential for flexible shallow water mapping and underwater object detection with promising results.

Theoretical and experimental investigations on speckle suppression of dual-wavelength imaging LiDAR by vibrating the multimode fiber

The multimode fiber (MMF) can be adopted to the fiber-coupling laser transmitting optics system of the array-imaging LiDAR for far-range detection due to the relatively high demand for laser energy which can melt the single-mode fiber. However, the modal noise within the multimode fiber (MMF) can result in severe speckle at the output face which seriously affects the staring imaging LiDAR detection performance. Based on the proposed dual-wavelength LiDAR prototype in which the ICCD detects the 532 nm signal and the array Gm-APD detects the 1064 nm signal, the micro vibrator which is beneficial to the system miniaturization is used for suppressing the speckle. For this application, it’s necessary to investigate the speckle suppression effect to evaluate whether the MMF could be suitable for the LiDAR system or not. To our best knowledge, the multimode speckle suppression for dual-wavelength LiDAR hasn’t been discussed ever, moreover, the Gm-APD speckle suppression research hasn’t been carried out, yet. In this paper, firstly, the principle of the speckle suppression by vibrating the MMF was investigated and the speckle suppression detection models of both detectors were first proposed and discussed. Then, the theoretical analysis was carried out, and it showed that the vibration amplitude of 9 mm and the vibration frequency of higher than 215 Hz could help to get a good suppression results. Finally, the vibrator’s parameters were chosen based on the theoretical results, and the experiments were carried out to investigate the effects of the vibrator’s voltage which affects the vibration frequency and the exposure time on the image contrast of the intensity and the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) for ICCD, besides, the Gm-APD’s contrast of triggering probability was also investigated. Experimental results indicated that the vibrator voltage for getting a good speckle suppression was at least 1.5 V, at which the ICCD’s CNR could be enhanced to 1.2 times within 40 ms exposure time and the contrast of intensity of ICCD could be lowered to 0.65 times; besides, the contrast of triggering probability of Gm-APD could be lowered to 0.58 times. Moreover, compared with the speckle suppression results within 5 ms, 40 ms exposure time could help to enhance the CNRs of ICCD to about 3.12 times, lower the contrast of intensity of ICCD and the contrast of the triggering probability of Gm-APD to 0.85 times and 0.84 times, respectively. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of using MMF coupling laser transmitting scheme in the dual-wavelength staring imaging LiDAR, and it provides the experimental and theoretical basis for the system miniaturization and flexible application of dual-wavelength LiDAR.

Dual-Wavelength Polarimetric Lidar Observations of the Volcanic Ash Cloud Produced during the 2016 Etna Eruption

Lidar observations are very useful to analyse dispersed volcanic clouds in the troposphere mainly because of their high range resolution, providing morphological as well as microphysical (size and mass) properties. In this work, we analyse the volcanic cloud of 18 May 2016 at Mt. Etna, in Italy, retrieved by polarimetric dual-wavelength Lidar measurements. We use the AMPLE (Aerosol Multi-Wavelength Polarization Lidar Experiment) system, located in Catania, about 25 km from the Etna summit craters, pointing at a thin volcanic cloud layer, clearly visible and dispersed from the summit craters at the altitude between 2 and 4 km and 6 and 7 km above the sea level. Both the backscattering and linear depolarization profiles at 355 nm (UV, ultraviolet) and 532 nm (VIS, visible) wavelengths, respectively, were obtained using different angles at 20°, 30°, 40° and 90°. The proposed approach inverts the Lidar measurements with a physically based inversion methodology named Volcanic Ash Lidar Retrieval (VALR), based on Maximum-Likelihood (ML). VALRML can provide estimates of volcanic ash mean size and mass concentration at a resolution of few tens of meters. We also compared those results with two methods: Single-variate Regression (SR) and Multi-variate Regression (MR). SR uses the backscattering coefficient or backscattering and depolarization coefficients of one wavelength (UV or VIS in our cases). The MR method uses the backscattering coefficient of both wavelengths (UV and VIS). In absence of in situ airborne validation data, the discrepancy among the different retrieval techniques is estimated with respect to the VALR ML algorithm. The VALR ML analysis provides ash concentrations between about 0.1 μg/m3 and 1 mg/m3 and particle mean sizes of 0.1 μm and 6 μm, respectively. Results show that, for the SR method differences are less than <10%, using the backscattering coefficient only and backscattering and depolarization coefficients. Moreover, we find differences of 20–30% respect to VALR ML, considering well-known parametric retrieval methods. VALR algorithms show how a physics-based inversion approaches can effectively exploit the spectral-polarimetric Lidar AMPLE capability.

Detection of Chlorophyll a and CDOM Absorption Coefficient with a Dual-Wavelength Oceanic Lidar: Wavelength Optimization Method

To overcome the retrieval problems in complex water, dual working wavelengths are required instead of a single wavelength in oceanic lidar. The wavelength optimization method of detecting chlorophyll a and Colored Dissolved Organic Matter (CDOM) absorption coefficient with a dual-wavelength lidar is studied in this paper. The inversion methods of chlorophyll a and CDOM absorption are developed based on the water absorption characteristics, which then lead to the inversion error equations. The effects of the wavelength on the inversion errors are studied. For the case in which λ1 and λ2 are both random, the errors are relatively small when λ1 is chosen between 420 and 560 nm and λ2 is selected under 420 nm. For the case in which λ1 is fixed at 532 nm, the errors generally decrease with decreasing λ2, with minimums around 300 and 356–360 nm under different water conditions. The wavelength optimization method discussed in this paper and the penetration depth criterion will be beneficial to the design of the dual-wavelength lidar.

Optimum wavelength of spaceborne oceanic lidar in penetration depth

The evaluation of the wavelength parameters of spaceborne oceanic lidar is of great importance to ensure that the lidar system can provide more information of ocean and can be realized in engineering. In this paper, the optimum wavelengths of spaceborne oceanic lidar for purposes of ocean detection at coastal and global scales are analyzed mainly in terms of the penetration depth. The global distribution of ocean penetration depth and the corresponding optimum wavelength bands are calculated by using the oceanic optical properties data from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). Ocean with optimum penetration wavelength of 488 nm covers 61.82% of the global ocean and the optimum wavelength of 443 nm with ocean area share of 14.81% is a good complement for 488 nm. The penetration depths of 96.26% of the global ocean are deeper than 0.8 times the euphotic zone depths by using wavelengths of 488 nm and 443 nm, simultaneously. More importantly, taking advantage of the characteristic of solar Fe Fraunhoferline (438.355 nm) and H-β Fraunhoferline (486.134 nm), 70% of the background light can be suppressed by a filter with bandwidth of 0.1 nm and the penetration depth can be increased by approximately 5.0%. In conclusion, we propose that 486.134 nm is the optimum wavelength of single-wavelength spaceborne oceanic lidar and the combination of 486.134 nm and 438.355 nm is a good choice for dual-wavelength lidar for purpose of global ocean detection.

Analysis of aerosol optical properties in a Lanzhou suburb of China

In order to accurately identify feature layer and monitor the spatial and temporal distribution of pollutants, the inversion method of lidar measurement based on multiscale algorithm is proposed in this paper. The detection of clouds, aerosols and dust layers using a modified retrieval algorithm for a dual-wavelength lidar is presented at the Semi-Arid Climate and Environment Observatory of Lanzhou University (SACOL). Moreover, the aerosol optical depth calculated from the Klett-Fernald algorithm obviously excludes the influence of clouds. Two cases were presented to demonstrate that the modified algorithm can capture low-clouds and dust layers well. The aerosol optical properties including aerosol optical depth (AOD), effective radius, depolarization ratio and black carbon aerosol mass concentration are analysed in terms of their monthly and seasonal variations. It is shown that the maximum of AOD, depolarization ratio and effective radius were found in spring (0.42 ± 0.35, 0.17 ± 0.1, 0.63 ± 0.24 μm) and the minimums were found in summer and autumn. The black carbon aerosol mass concentration varies significantly throughout year, with the maximum value in winter (2.35 ± 1.56 μg m−3) and a secondary maximum in autumn (1.93 ± 1.28 μg m−3), a minimum (1.03 ± 0.76 μg m−3) in spring. The vertical distribution of extinction coefficient has a peak near 1 km (0.1 km−1). The depolarization ratio vertically distributes at approximately 0.15. In general, pollution is more serious in spring and winter at SACOL, the former pollutants are coarse-mode non-spherical dust particles which originate from the Taklimakan Desert and the Gobi Desert, and the latter are fine mode spherical black carbon aerosols and coarse-mode non-spherical dust aerosols which are the results of both local combustion and long-distance transport. The dust particles existed high-altitude transport in spring and winter at SACOL.

Perturbation Solution for Four-Stream Infrared Radiative Transfer

Abstract A four-stream solution of the longwave radiative transfer is proposed. It is based on the exact perturbation method utilizing the absorption approximation equation as the zero-order solution. Scattering is handled by the first-order perturbation equation. The two- and four-stream approximations are compared both offline and using data from CALIPSO’s dual-wavelength lidar.

紫外双波长激光雷达系统研制与信噪比分析

紫外双波长激光雷达系统研制与信噪比分析

Accuracy calculation for lidar ratio and aerosol size distribution by dual-wavelength lidar

This paper presents a method to obtain aerosol-lidar ratio and particle-size distribution simultaneously with a dual-wavelength lidar, when the aerosol particle-size distribution is to be approximated by a Junge distribution. The manuscript analyzed the relationship between the aerosol particle ratio, particle-size distribution, and particle complex refractive index. The results show that the particle properties have a great impact on the lidar ratio. If the selected lidar ratio is not suitable, the extinction coefficient obtained from the Fernald method will cause a great uncertainty in the inversion of particle-size distribution. A lidar-ratio iteration method was introduced to solve the influence of improper lidar-ratio selection on particle-size distribution inversion, and then conducted simulation calculations and analysis. The simulation results show that the lidar-ratio iteration method effectively solves the problem of uncomfortable lidar ratio, and can obtain relatively accurate lidar ratio and particle-size distribution parameters at the same time; the uncertainty of iteration method was discussed in the manuscript.

The potential of dual-wavelength terrestrial lidar in early detection of Ips typographus (L.) infestation – Leaf water content as a proxy

Climate change is causing novel forest stress around the world due to changes in environmental conditions. Forest pest insects, such as Ips typographus (L.), are spreading toward the northern latitudes and are now able to produce more generations in their current range; this has increased forest disturbances. Timely information on tree decline is critical in allowing forest managers to plan effective countermeasures and to forecast potential infestation areas. Field-based infestation surveys of bark beetles have traditionally involved visual estimates of entrance holes, resin flow, and maternal-gallery densities; such estimates are prone to error and bias. Thus, objective and automated methods for estimating tree infestation status are required.In this study, we investigated the feasibility of dual-wavelength terrestrial lidar in the estimation and detection of I. typographus infestation symptoms. In addition, we examined the relationship between leaf water content (measured as gravimetric water content and equivalent water thickness) and infestation severity. Using two terrestrial lidar systems (operating at 905 nm and 1550 nm), we measured 29 mature Norway spruce (Picea abies [L.] Karst.) trees that exhibited low or moderate infestation symptoms. We calculated single and dual-wavelength lidar intensity metrics from stem and crown points to test these metrics' ability to discriminate I. typographus infestation levels using regressions and linear discriminant analyses.Across the various I. typographus infestation levels, we found significant differences (p < 0.05) in gravimetric water content, but not in equivalent water thickness due to the latter statistic's high correlation with leaf density. The results show correlations between the lidar intensity metrics and several infestation symptoms: defoliation, discoloration and resin flow. The intensity metrics explain 50% of the variation in the infestation severity (as determined in the field based on canopy and stem symptoms). The overall accuracy with three infestation classes (no, low, or moderate) was 66%, but the overall accuracy with two infestation classes (not infested, or infested) was 90%. The classifiers combine lidar intensity metrics from the stem and the canopy to allow for the detection of bark-beetle infestations in the early, so called green-attack stage. The intensity metrics explain part of the variations in tree-level gravimetric water content and equivalent water thickness, with adjusted R2 values of 0.48 and 0.68, respectively. Terrestrial dual-wavelength lidar shows potential for providing objective tree-decline measurements at tree level: this method can be further used to enhance forest inventories and automate tree-vigor data collection, which has traditionally required expert knowledge.

Investigating the effect of hygroscopicity of aerosols on optical profiles of PBL observed by dual-wavelength lidar

The light scattering and radiation properties of aerosols are mainly dominated by hygroscopicity. In this study, the relationship between the wavelength dependent ratio of lidar scattering signals (color ratio) and relative humidity and the application of the color ratio to identify the cloud base is examined.

Estimate of rain evaporation rates from dual-wavelength lidar measurements: comparison against a model analytical solution

Rain evaporation significantly contributes to moisture and heat cloud budgets. In this paper, we illustrate an approach to estimate the median volume raindrop diameter and the rain evaporation rate profiles from dual-wavelength lidar measurements. These observational results are compared with those provided by a model analytical solution. We made use of measurements from the multi-wavelength Raman lidar BASIL.

A METHOD OF EXTRACTING SHORELINE BASED ON SEMANTIC INFORMATION USING DUAL-LENGTH LiDAR DATA

Abstract. Shoreline is a spatial varying separation between water and land. By utilizing dual-wavelength LiDAR point data together with semantic information that shoreline often appears beyond water surface profile and is observable on the beach, the paper generates the shoreline and the details are as follows: (1) Gain the water surface profile: first we obtain water surface by roughly selecting water points based on several features of water body, then apply least square fitting method to get the whole water trend surface. Then we get the ground surface connecting the under -water surface by both TIN progressive filtering method and surface interpolation method. After that, we have two fitting surfaces intersected to get water surface profile of the island. (2) Gain the sandy beach: we grid all points and select the water surface profile grids points as seeds, then extract sandy beach points based on eight-neighborhood method and features, then we get all sandy beaches. (3) Get the island shoreline: first we get the sandy beach shoreline based on intensity information, then we get a threshold value to distinguish wet area and dry area, therefore we get the shoreline of several sandy beaches. In some extent, the shoreline has the same height values within a small area, by using all the sandy shoreline points to fit a plane P, and the intersection line of the ground surface and the shoreline plane P can be regarded as the island shoreline. By comparing with the surveying shoreline, the results show that the proposed method can successfully extract shoreline.

Combined observation of a dust storm over the Loess Plateau using a dual-wavelength lidar and an aethalometer

A dust storm was observed at the Semi-Arid Climate and Environment observatory of Lanzhou University (SACOL) using a dual-wavelength lidar and an aethalometer from 16 March to 22 March 2010. After the arrival of the dust storm, the lidar backscattered signal increased suddenly, the volume depolarization ratio ranged from 0.2 to 0.4. The dust aerosol was detected mainly in a layer below 2.5 km altitude. A higher attenuated backscatter coefficient (0.005–0.02 km−1/sr) was distributed in a lower layer (below 2.5 km) during the dust storm. The evolution of the dust storm was also clearly revealed by the integrated particle backscatter coefficient (BE). Particles in the coarse mode are predominant during the dust storm because Ångström exponent mainly ranged from 0.5 to 1.0. An aethalometer was used to measure the aerosol absorption coefficient as well as aerosol mass concentration. The average mass concentration of aerosol was 1.3 μg/m3 during the dust free period but increased to 1.8 μg/m3 during the dust storm, so the dust aerosol apparently played an important role. The main absorptive particle was black carbon during the dust free period. In addition, the peaks of dust aerosol concentration mainly occurred at around 08:00 and 20:00 (Beijing Time), one reason was that the increase of wind speed result in more dust particles blown up into the atmosphere in the neighborhood of SACOL and another reason was that the boundary layer convection was undeveloped in the morning and the temperature inversion appeared easily in the evening. The trend of the aerosol absorption coefficient was similar to that of mass concentration, and the aerosol absorption coefficient significantly increased during the dust storm.

Rain Evaporation Rate Estimates from Dual-Wavelength Lidar Measurements and Intercomparison against a Model Analytical Solution

AbstractRain evaporation, while significantly contributing to moisture and heat cloud budgets, is a still poorly understood process with few measurements presently available. Multiwavelength lidars, widely employed in aerosols and clouds studies, can also provide useful information on the microphysical characteristics of light precipitation, for example, drizzle and virga. In this paper, lidar measurements of the median volume raindrop diameter and rain evaporation rate profiles are compared with a model analytical solution. The intercomparison reveals good agreement between the model and observations, with a correlation between the profiles up to 65% and a root-mean-square error up to 22% with a 5% bias. Larger discrepancies are due to radiosonde soundings different air masses and model assumptions no more valid along the profile as nonsteady atmosphere and/or appearance of collision–coalescence processes. Nevertheless, this study shares valuable information to better characterize the rain evaporation processes.

Characteristics of aerosol size distribution and vertical backscattering coefficient profile during 2014 APEC in Beijing

During the 2014 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference period, Beijing's air quality was greatly improved as a result of a series of tough emission control measures being implemented in Beijing and its surrounding provinces. However, a moderate haze occurred during the period of 4–5 November. In order to evaluate the emission control measures and study the formation mechanism of the haze, a comprehensive field observation based on a supersite and a lidar network was carried out from 25 October 2014 to 20 January 2015. By investigating the variations in aerosol number concentration and mean backscattering coefficient before, during and after the APEC period, it was found that number concentration of accumulation mode and coarse mode particles experienced the most significant decrease by 47% and 68%, and mean backscattering coefficient below 1 km decreased by 34% during the APEC period. Being characterized as “rapidly accumulating and rapidly dispersing”, the moderate haze occurred during the APEC period was probably initiated by a wind direction change to south and an increase of wind speed to 4 m/s. Sulfur dioxide involved plume nucleation without growth in size as well as a burst of particles ranging between 100 and 300 nm were observed simultaneously during the haze episode. The elevation of sulfur dioxide concentration and particle number concentration was highly correlated with the southerly wind, signifying the contribution of regional transport. It was observed by the lidar network that the aerosol backscattering coefficient increased in sequence among three sites along the southwest pathway, suggesting that aerosols might be transported from the southwest to the northeast of Beijing with a speed of approximately 17 km/h, which agreed with the movement of air masses modeled by Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT). The dual-wavelength lidar (355 and 532 nm) observation suggested that transportation of fine particles from high-level atmosphere (approximately 2 km) could be the potential sources of the haze. Our result showed that regional transport would contribute to haze formation in Beijing under such meteorological conditions, thus, to maintain the “APEC blue”, significant attention should be paid to controlling regional transport through the southwest pathway.

Saharan dust contribution to the Caribbean summertime boundary layer – a lidar study during SALTRACE

Abstract. Dual-wavelength lidar measurements with the small lidar system POLIS of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München were performed during the SALTRACE experiment at Barbados in June and July 2013. Based on high-accuracy measurements of the linear depolarization ratio down to about 200 m above ground level, the dust volume fraction and the dust mass concentration within the convective marine boundary layer can be derived. Additional information from radiosonde launches at the ground-based measurement site provide independent information on the convective marine boundary layer height and the meteorological situation within the convective marine boundary layer. We investigate the lidar-derived optical properties, the lidar ratio and the particle linear depolarization ratio at 355 and 532 nm and find mean values of 0.04 (SD 0.03) and 0.05 (SD 0.04) at 355 and 532 nm, respectively, for the particle linear depolarization ratio, and (26 ± 5) sr for the lidar ratio at 355 and 532 nm. For the concentration of dust in the convective marine boundary layer we find that most values were between 20 and 50 µgm−3. On most days the dust contribution to total aerosol volume was about 30–40 %. Comparing the dust contribution to the column-integrated sun-photometer measurements we see a correlation between high dust contribution, high total aerosol optical depth and a low Angström exponent, and of low dust contribution with low total aerosol optical depth.