Moritz Haarig
Papers
6
Total Citations
361
H-Index
4
About
Moritz Haarig is an atmospheric scientist whose research focuses on the remote sensing of aerosols, particularly mineral dust and wildfire smoke, using advanced lidar techniques. His most impactful work documented the extreme stratospheric smoke event of August 2017, when Canadian wildfire plumes lofted over central Europe produced light extinction coefficients 20 times higher than those observed after the 1991 Pinatubo eruption—a finding that has garnered 190 citations and reshaped understanding of wildfire aerosol impacts on the stratosphere. Haarig led the first triple-wavelength lidar observations of Saharan dust, providing novel measurements of dust lidar ratio and linear depolarization at 355, 532, and 1064 nm, which have become a benchmark for dust characterization. He also contributed to the SALTRACE campaign, using sun photometer retrievals to study Saharan dust properties over Barbados. His work on near-spherical smoke particles challenged conventional assumptions about smoke morphology, and his updates to the POLIPHON conversion framework enable more accurate retrieval of aerosol microphysical properties from lidar networks. Haarig’s research bridges fundamental aerosol optics and real-world climate impacts, making him a key figure in lidar-based atmospheric science.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
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- 3Is the near-spherical shape the “new black” for smoke?48 citations · 2020
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