• Atmosphere
• /
• v.20 no.4
• /
• pp.483-494
• /
• 2010

The vertical profiles of the extinction coefficient, the backscatter coefficient, and the lidar ratio (i.e., extinction-to-backscattering ratio) for Asian dust and pollution aerosols are determined from Raman (inelastic) and elastic backscatter signals. The values of lidar ratios during two polluted days is found between 52 and 82 sr (July 22, 2009) and 40~60 sr (July 31, 2009) at 52 nm, with relatively low value of particle depolarization ratio (<5%) and high value of sun photometer-derived Angstrom exponent (> 1.2). However, lidar ratios between 25 and 40 sr are found during two Asian dust periods (October 20, 2009 and March 15, 2010), with 10~20% of particle depolarization ratio and the relatively low value of sun photometer-derived Angstrom exponent (< 0.39). The lidar ratio, particle depolarization ratio and color ratio are useful optical parameter to distinguish non-spherical coarse dust and spherical fine pollution aerosols. The comparison of aerosol extinction profiles determined from inelastic-backscatter signals by the Raman method and from elastic-backscatter signals by using the Fernald method with constant value of lidar ratio (50 sr) have shown that reliable aerosol extinction coefficients cannot be determined from elastic-backscatter signals alone, because the lidar ratio varies with aerosol types. A combined Raman and elastic backscatter lidar system can provide reliable information about the aerosol extinction profile and the aerosol lidar ratio.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
• /
• v.15 no.3
• /
• pp.209-215
• /
• 2011

A new iterative algorithm is developed to estimate LIDAR ratio for a thin cirrus cloud over an aerosol layer. First, the thin cirrus cloud is screened out and replaced by a modeled LIDAR signal and the extinction coefficients of the aerosol layer are derived using the Fernald backward method. These aerosol coefficients are referred as the "actual values". Second, the original LIDAR signal which includes the thin cirrus cloud is also inverted by the Fernald backward method down to the aerosol layer but using different LIDAR ratio for the thin cirrus cloud. Depending on the different assumptions about the LIDAR ratio of the thin cirrus cloud, different sets of aerosol extinction can be derived. The "actual values" which are found in the first step can be used to constrain this iterative progress and the correct LIDAR ratio of the thin cirrus cloud can be found. The detailed description of this method and retrieval examples are given in the paper. The cases compared with other methods are presented and the statistical result is also shown and agrees well with other studies.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
• /
• v.14 no.3
• /
• pp.174-177
• /
• 2010

The rotational Raman LIDAR technique has been used to accurately measure aerosol optical properties such as backscatter coefficient, extinction coefficient, and LIDAR ratio. In the case of the vibrational Raman technique, the ${\AA}$ngstr$\ddot{o}$om exponent, which has wavelength dependence on the particle properties, is assumed to obtain the extinction coefficient. However, this assumed ${\AA}$ngstr$\ddot{o}$m exponent can cause systematic errors in retrieving aerosol optical properties. In the case of the rotational Raman technique, the aerosol optical properties can be measured without any assumptions about the ${\AA}$ngstr$\ddot{o}$m exponent. In this paper, the LIDAR ratio was measured by using the rotational Raman LIDAR and vibrational Raman LIDAR in the troposphere. And, the LIDAR ratios measured by these two methods were compared.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
• /
• v.22 no.1
• /
• pp.1-14
• /
• 2006

Tropospheric aerosols are highly variant in time and space due to non-uniform source distribution and strong influence of meteorological conditions. Backscatter lidar measurement is useful to understand vertical distribution of aerosol. However, the backscatter lidar equation is undetermined due to its dependence on the two unknowns, extinction and backscattering coefficient. This dependence necessitates the exact value of the ratio between two parameters, that is, the lidar ratio. Also, Iidar ratio itself is useful optical parameter to understand properties of aerosols. Tropospheric aerosols were observed to understand variance of lidar ratio at Anmyeon island ($36.32^{/circ}N$, $126.19^{/circ}E$), Korea using a multi-wavelength raman lidar system developed by the Advanced Environmental Monitoring Research Center (ADEMRC), Gwangju Institute Science and Technology (GIST), Korea during measurement periods; March 15$\sim$April $16^{th}$, 2004 and May 24$\sim$ $8^{th}$ 2005. Extinction coefficient, backscattering coefficient, and lidar ratio were measured at 355 and 532 nm by the Raman method. Different types of aerosol layers were distinguished by the differences in the optical properties such as Angstrom exponent, and lidar ratio. The average value of lidar ratio during two observation periods was found to be $50.85\pm4.88$ sr at 355 nm and $52.43\pm15.15$ sr at 532 nm at 2004 and $57.94\pm10.29$ sr at 355 nm and $82.24\pm15.90$ sr at 532 nm at 2005. We conduct hysplit back-trajectory to know the pathway of airmass during the observation periods. We also calculate lidar ratio of different type of aerosol, urban, maritime, dust, continental aerosols using OPAC (Optical Properties of Aerosols and Clouds), Remote sensing of atmospheric aerosol using a multi-wavelengh lidar system with Raman channels is quite and powerful tool to characterize the optical propertises of troposheric aerosols.

• Current Optics and Photonics
• /
• v.2 no.2
• /
• pp.119-124
• /
• 2018

The errors in retrieved aerosol backscattering coefficients due to different lidar ratios are analyzed quantitatively in this paper. The actual calculation shows that the inversion error of the aerosol backscattering coefficients using the Fernald backward-integration method increases with increasing inversion distance. The greater the error in the lidar ratio, the faster the error in the aerosol backscattering coefficient increases. For the same error in lidar ratio, the smaller actual aerosol backscattering coefficient will get the larger relative error of the retrieved aerosol backscattering coefficient. The errors in the lidar ratios for dust or the cirrus layer have great impact on the retrievals of backscattering coefficients. The interval between the retrieved height and the reference range is one of the important factors for the derived error in the aerosol backscattering coefficient, which is revealed quantitatively for the first time in this paper. The conclusions of this article can provide a basis for error estimation in retrieved backscattering coefficients of background aerosols, dust and cirrus layer. The errors in the lidar ratio of an aerosol layer influence the retrievals of backscattering coefficients for the aerosol layer below it.

• Atmosphere
• /
• v.25 no.1
• /
• pp.169-177
• /
• 2015

Vertical distribution of particle mass concentrations was estimated from 8-year elastic-backscatter lidar and sky radiometer data, and from ground-level PM10 concentrations measured in Seoul. Lidar ratio and mass extinction efficiency were determined from aerosol optical depth (AOD) and ground-level PM10 concentrations, which were used as constraints to estimate particle mass concentration. The mean lidar ratio (with standard deviation) and mass extinction efficiency for the entire 8-year study period were $60.44{\pm}23.17$ sr and $3.69{\pm}3.00m^2g^{-1}$, respectively. The lidar ratio did not vary significantly with the ${\AA}ngstr{\ddot{o}}m$ exponent (less than ${\pm}10%$); however, the mass extinction efficiency decreases to $1.82{\pm}1.67m^2g^{-1}$ (51% less than the mean value) when the ${\AA}ngstr{\ddot{o}}m$ exponent is less than 0.5. This result implies that the particle mass concentration from lidar measurements can be underestimated for dust events. Seasonal variation of the particle mass concentration estimated from lidar measurements for the boundary layer, was quite different from ground-level PM10 measurements. This can be attributable to an inhomogeneous vertical distribution of aerosol in the boundary layer.

• Atmosphere
• /
• v.21 no.1
• /
• pp.57-67
• /
• 2011

Aerosol lidar ratio (extinction-to-backscatter ratio) at 532 nm was determined using 4-year measurements of elastic-backscatter lidar and sky radiometer at Seoul National University of Seoul, Korea. The mean lidar ratio (with standard deviation) based on 4 years of measurements is found to be $61.7{\pm}16.5$ sr, and weak seasonal variations are noted with a maximum in JJA ($68.1{\pm}16.8$ sr) and a minimum in DJF ($57.2{\pm}17.9$ sr). The lidar ratios for clean, dust, and polluted conditions are estimated to be $45.0{\pm}9.5$ sr, $51.7{\pm}13.7$ sr, and $62.2{\pm}13.2$ sr, respectively. While the lidar ratio for the polluted condition is appears to be consistent with previous studies, clean and dust conditions tend to have larger ratios, compared to previous estimates. This discrepancy is thought to be mainly due to the anthropogenic aerosols existing throughout the year around Seoul, which may cause increased lidar ratios even for clean and dust conditions.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
• /
• v.14 no.3
• /
• pp.215-220
• /
• 2010

Aerosol observation with Raman LIDAR in NIES (National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan) LIDAR network was conducted from 17 April to 12 June 2008 over Beijing, China. The aerosol optical properties derived from Raman LIDAR were compared with the retrieved data from sun photometer and sky radiometer observations in the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET). The comparison provided the complete knowledge of aerosol optical and physical properties in Beijing, especially in pollution and Asian dust events. The averaged aerosol optical depth (AOD) at 675 nm was 0.81 and the Angstrom exponent between 440 nm and 675 nm was 0.99 during experiment. The LIDAR derived AOD at 532 nm in the planetary boundary layer (PBL) was 0.48, which implied that half of the total AOD was contributed by the aerosol in PBL. The corresponding averaged LIDAR ratio and total depolarization ratio (TDR) were 48.5sr and 8.1%. The negative correlation between LIDAR ratio and TDR indicated the LIDAR ratio decreased with aerosol size because of the high TDR associated with nonspherical and large aerosols. The typical volume size distribution of the aerosol clearly demonstrated that the coarse mode radius located near 3 ${\mu}m$ in dust case, a bi-mode with fine particle centered at 0.2 ${\mu}m$ and coarse particle at 2 ${\mu}m$ was the characteristic size distribution in the pollution and clean cases. The different size distributions of aerosol resulted in its different optical properties. The retrieved LIDAR ratio and TDR were 41.1sr and 19.5% for a dust event, 53.8sr and 6.6% for a pollution event as well as 57.3sr and 7.2% for a clean event. In conjunction with the observed surface wind field near the LIDAR site, most of the pollution aerosols were produced locally or transported from the southeast of Beijing, whereas the dust aerosols associated with the clean air mass were transported by the northwesterly or southwesterly winds.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
• /
• v.14 no.4
• /
• pp.444-450
• /
• 2010

The traditional approach to inverting aerosol extinction makes use of the assumption of a constant LIDAR ratio in the entire Mie-LIDAR signal profile using the Fernald method. For the large uncertainty in the cloud optical depth caused by the assumed constant LIDAR ratio, an not negligible error of the retrieved aerosol extinction below the cloud will be caused in the backward integration of the Fernald method. A new algorithm to determine aerosol extinction below a cirrus cloud from Mie-LIDAR signals, based on a new cloud boundary detection method and a Mie-LIDAR signal modification method, combined with the backward integration of the Fernald method is developed. The result shows that the cloud boundary detection method is reliable, and the aerosol extinction below the cirrus cloud found by inverting from the modified signal is more efficacious than the one from the measured signal including the cloud-layer. The error due to modification is less than 10% taken in our present example.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
• /
• v.32 no.2
• /
• pp.97-104
• /
• 2016

We present linear particle depolarization ratio at 440, 675, 870, and 1020 nm retrieved from measurements with an AERONET sun/sky radiometer at Osaka, Japan. The retrieved data were compared with lidar derived linear particle depolarization ratio at 532 nm at the same site. We find good agreement between linear particle depolarization ratios derived with Sun photometer and measured by lidar except for those at 440 nm. The coefficients of determination between lidar derived data and sun/sky radiometer derived data were 0.28, 0.81, 0.88, and 0.89 at 440, 675, 870, and 1020 nm, respectively. We find that the linear particle depolarization ratio derived with sun/sky radiometer varies by the mixing between Asian dust and pollution particles. As the mixing ratio of Asian dust and pollution particles is increased, the linear particle depolarization ratio values are lower than the values of pure Asian dust. It was confirmed by the value of single-scattering albedo and particle size distribution.