Abstract. The annual and seasonal variability of aerosol optical properties observed by means of a Raman lidar over Northeastern Spain has been assessed. The lidar representativeness has first been checked against sun-photometer measurements in terms of aerosol optical thickness. Then the annual cycle and the seasonal variability of the planetary boundary layer aerosol optical thickness and its fraction compared to the columnar optical thickness, the lidar ratio, the backscatter-relatedÅngström exponent and the planetary boundary layer height are analyzed and discussed. Winter and summer mean profiles of extinction, backscatter and lidar ratio retrieved with the Raman algorithm are presented. The analysis shows the impact of most of the natural events (Saharan dust intrusions, wildfires, etc.) and meteorological situations (summer anticyclonic situation, the formation of the Iberian thermal low, winter long-range transport from North Europe and/or North America, re-circulation flows, etc.) occurring in the Barcelona area. A detailed study of a special event including a combined intrusion of Saharan dust and biomass-burning particles proves the suitability of combining the retrieval of aerosol optical properties from Raman and pure elastic lidar measurements to discriminate spatially different types of aerosols and to follow their spatial and temporal evolution.
Temporal analysis of the irradiance at the detector plane is intended as the first step in the study of the mean fade time in a free optical communication system. In the present work this analysis has been performed for a Gaussian laser beam propagating in the atmospheric turbulence by means of computer simulation. To this end, we have adapted a previously known numerical method to the generation of long phase screens. The screens are displaced in a transverse direction as the wave is propagated, in order to simulate the wind effect. The amplitude of the temporal covariance and its power spectrum have been obtained at the optical axis, at the beam centroid and at a certain distance from these two points. Results have been worked out for weak, moderate and strong turbulence regimes and when possible they have been compared with theoretical models. These results show a significant contribution of beam wander to the temporal behaviour of the irradiance, even in the case of weak turbulence. We have also found that the spectral bandwidth of the covariance is hardly dependent on the Rytov variance.
Because of the high quality of its sky, the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (ORM), located on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, is home to many astronomical facilities. In the context of the Extremely Large Telescope Design Study, two intensive lidar campaigns were performed at the ORM near the Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope between 2007 July 9 and 11 and between 2008 May 26 and June 14. The goal of the campaign was to characterize the atmosphere in terms of the height of the planetary boundary layer (PBL) and the aerosol stratification versus synoptic conditions. Three typical synoptic situations were found, which supported the intrusion of aerosols from marine/oceanic, anthropogenic and Saharan origins, respectively. All measurements revealed a multilayer stratification with a mean PBL height of 546 ± 198 m agl and top layers as high as ∼8400 m asl. As a by‐product, an estimate of the aerosol optical thickness was also obtained and compared to the total atmospheric extinction coefficient measured by the Carlsberg Meridian Telescope. Except in the presence of Saharan dust, the aerosol optical thickness is very low; the average values are 0.0405 at 532 nm and 0.0055 at 1064 nm. In the presence of Saharan dust, values of 0.233 and 0.157 were found at 532 and 1064 nm, respectively. The proportion of aerosol optical thickness contained in the layers above the PBL against that contained in the PBL is in all cases greater or equal to 50 per cent. This emphasizes the importance of the upper layers in the scattering and absorption of astronomical signals. Additionally, for the first time, spaceborne lidar measurements were also compared to those of a ground lidar, in order to evaluate the use of a spaceborne active instrument for aerosol content monitoring at an astronomical site.
Emissions of CH 4 over the central Iberian Peninsula have been estimated experimentally for the first time using the Radon Tracer Method (RTM), which uses the atmospheric noble radioactive gas ²²²Rn as an auxiliary tracer. The nocturnal enhancement ratios of atmospheric concentrations of CH 4 and 222 Rn, continuously measured at the station of Gredos and Iruelas within the IC3 network since 2012, were used to early estimate the methane emissions in this region by multiplying for a constant radon flux. The possible influence of different methane source areas was observed by footprint analysis of FLEXPART with ECMWF meteorological input at 0.2 degrees horizontal resolution. A linear relationship between atmospheric radon and methane concentrations has been found to occur in 20% of the nocturnal episodes and an average methane emission of 0.12 mg m-2 h-1 ± 0.03 (1 σ). The data coverage and method is coherent with CH 4 fluxes inferred with the same RTM in Germany, Canada and East Asia and our flux estimates are similar to methane emissions reported by the bottom-up inventory EDGARv4.2 .
We analyze the intensity-modulation frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) technique for lidar remote sensing in the context of its application to distributed media. The goal of the technique is the reproduction of the sounded-medium profile along the emission path. A conceptual analysis is carried out to show the problems the basic version of the method presents for this application. The principal point is the appearance of a bandpass filtering effect, which seems to hinder its use in this context. A modified version of the technique is proposed to overcome this problem. A number of computer simulations confirm the ability of the modified FMCW technique to sound distributed media.
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