Study of aerosol microphysical properties profiles retrieved from ground-based remote sensing and aircraft in-situ measurements during a Saharan dust event

Abstract

Abstract. In this work we present an analysis of mineral dust optical and microphysical properties obtained from different retrieval techniques applied to active and passive remote sensing measurements, including a comparison with simultaneous in-situ aircraft measurements. Data were collected in a field campaign performed during a mineral dust outbreak a Granada, Spain, experimental site (37.16° N, 3.61° W, 680 m a.s.l.) on the 27 June 2011. Column-integrated properties are provided by sun- and star-photometry which allows a continuous evaluation of the mineral dust optical properties during both day and night-time. Both the Linear Estimation and AERONET (Aerosol Robotic Network) inversion algorithms are applied for the retrieval of the column-integrated microphysical particle properties. In addition, vertically-resolved microphysical properties are obtained from a multi-wavelength Raman lidar system included in EARLINET (European Aerosol Research Lidar Network), by using both LIRIC (Lidar Radiometer Inversion Code) algorithm during daytime and an algorithm applied to the Raman measurements based on the regularization technique during night-time. LIRIC retrievals reveal several dust layers between 3 and 5 km a.s.l. with volume concentrations of the coarse spheroid mode up to 60 μm3 cm−3. The combined use of the regularization and LIRIC methods reveals the night-to-day evolution of the vertical structure of the mineral dust microphysical properties and offers complementary information to that from column-integrated variables retrieved from passive remote sensing. Additionally, lidar depolarization profiles and LIRIC retrieved volume concentration are compared with aircraft in-situ measurements. This study presents for the first time a comparison of both volume concentration and dust particle polarization ratios measured with in-situ and remote sensing techniques. Results for the depolarization measurements in the dust layer indicate reasonable agreement within the estimated uncertainties. The differences in the volume concentration profiles, although somewhat larger, are still within the expected uncertainties.