The impact of aerosol fluorescence on long-term water vapor monitoring by Raman lidar and evaluation of a potential correction method

Chouza, Fernando; Leblanc, Thierry; Brewer, Mark; Wang, Patrick; Martucci, Giovanni; Haefele, Alexander; Vérèmes, Hélène; Duflot, Valentin; Payen, Guillaume; Keckhut, Philippe

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-4241-2022

Articles | Volume 15, issue 14

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-4241-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-4241-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 14

Research article

|

22 Jul 2022

Research article |

| 22 Jul 2022

The impact of aerosol fluorescence on long-term water vapor monitoring by Raman lidar and evaluation of a potential correction method

Fernando Chouza, Thierry Leblanc, Mark Brewer, Patrick Wang, Giovanni Martucci, Alexander Haefele, Hélène Vérèmes, Valentin Duflot, Guillaume Payen, and Philippe Keckhut

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Final revised paper (published on 22 Jul 2022)
Preprint (discussion started on 22 Apr 2022)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

RC1:
'Comment on amt-2022-98', Anonymous Referee #1, 25 Apr 2022

The smoke layers in the low stratosphere, in contrast to dust or volcanic ash, can provide strong fluorescence. The smoke fluorescence, in particular, was analyzed, in recent publication:

Veselovskii, I., Hu, Q., Ansmann, A., Goloub, A., Podvin, T., Korenskiy, M.: Fluorescence lidar observations of wildfire smoke inside cirrus: A contribution to smoke-cirrus - interaction research, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 5209–5221, 2022.

In the manuscript presented, the authors analyze the influence of smoke fluorescence on Raman water vapor measurements in stratosphere. They demonstrate that smoke contribution is significant and suggest the scheme to correct corresponding contamination. Comparison of lidar and zonde measurements convincingly demonstrate, that their approach allows significantly to decrease the uncertainty of vapor measurements inside the smoke layers. Manuscript is well and clearly written, and is suitable for publication in AMT. I have just several technical comments.

Fig.1. Green letters M-09 at the top of the figure probably mean MOHAVE-2009. This should be explained in the capture.

Influence of fluorescence on the vapor measurements discussed also in:

Reichardt, J.: Cloud and aerosol spectroscopy with Raman lidar, J. Atm. Ocean. Tech., 31, 1946-1963, 2014.

Fig.5c. From the title of left axis it is not clear, that this is the ratio of the channels

Fig.6c. I am a bit confused by the explanation of increase of uncertainty at high altitudes after correction. If we measure the sum of water vapor and fluorescence signal, does it mean that statistical uncertainty of vapor measurements becomes lower? I think uncertainty of vapor signal should stay the same…Correct me if I am wrong.

Ln.438. “ but kis substantially more difficult to quantify and much more variable as it depends on the composition of the interfering aerosols”

Why does this coefficient depends on aerosol type? I think only absolute value of fluorescence signal depends, but not k_ð¹.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2022-98-RC1
- AC1: 'Author's reply', Fernando Chouza, 08 Jun 2022
  
  The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://amt.copernicus.org/preprints/amt-2022-98/amt-2022-98-AC1-supplement.pdf
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2022-98-AC1
RC2:
'Comment on amt-2022-98', Jens Reichardt, 22 May 2022

The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://amt.copernicus.org/preprints/amt-2022-98/amt-2022-98-RC2-supplement.pdf

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2022-98-RC2
- AC1: 'Author's reply', Fernando Chouza, 08 Jun 2022
  
  The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://amt.copernicus.org/preprints/amt-2022-98/amt-2022-98-AC1-supplement.pdf
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2022-98-AC1

Peer review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision | EF: Editorial file upload

AR by Fernando Chouza on behalf of the Authors (08 Jun 2022) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (24 Jun 2022) by Ulla Wandinger

Regarding the comment of Dr. Reichardt on Fig. 6 (height of BBA layers) and your discussion of a new quality of fire events since 2017 in Sec. 5 (line 476 ff.), you may want to consider more information avaible in the literature. The following publications (and references therein) provide inside into the presence of smoke aerosol in the stratosphere of the northern and southern hemisphere since 2017 and on self-lofting processes that lead to the rise of layers up to more than 30 km height.

Ansmann, A., Baars, H., Chudnovsky, A., Mattis, I., Veselovskii, I., Haarig, M., Seifert, P., Engelmann, R., and Wandinger, U.: Extreme levels of Canadian wildfire smoke in the stratosphere over central Europe on 21–22 August 2017, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 11831–11845, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-11831-2018, 2018.

Ansmann, A., Ohneiser, K., Mamouri, R.-E., Knopf, D. A., Veselovskii, I., Baars, H., Engelmann, R., Foth, A., Jimenez, C., Seifert, P., and Barja, B.: Tropospheric and stratospheric wildfire smoke profiling with lidar: mass, surface area, CCN, and INP retrieval, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 9779–9807, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-9779-2021, 2021.

Ansmann, A., Ohneiser, K., Chudnovsky, A., Baars, H., and Engelmann, R.: CALIPSO Aerosol-Typing Scheme Misclassified Stratospheric Fire Smoke: Case Study From the 2019 Siberian Wildfire Season, Front. Environ. Sci., 9:769852, https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2021.769852, 2021.

Baars, H., Ansmann, A., Ohneiser, K., Haarig, M., Engelmann, R., Althausen, D., Hanssen, I., Gausa, M., Pietruczuk, A., Szkop, A., Stachlewska, I. S., Wang, D., Reichardt, J., Skupin, A., Mattis, I., Trickl, T., Vogelmann, H., Navas-Guzmán, F., Haefele, A., Acheson, K., Ruth, A. A., Tatarov, B., Müller, D., Hu, Q., Podvin, T., Goloub, P., Veselovskii, I., Pietras, C., Haeffelin, M., Fréville, P., Sicard, M., Comerón, A., Fernández García, A. J., Molero Menéndez, F., Córdoba-Jabonero, C., Guerrero-Rascado, J. L., Alados-Arboledas, L., Bortoli, D., Costa, M. J., Dionisi, D., Liberti, G. L., Wang, X., Sannino, A., Papagiannopoulos, N., Boselli, A., Mona, L., D'Amico, G., Romano, S., Perrone, M. R., Belegante, L., Nicolae, D., Grigorov, I., Gialitaki, A., Amiridis, V., Soupiona, O., Papayannis, A., Mamouri, R.-E., Nisantzi, A., Heese, B., Hofer, J., Schechner, Y. Y., Wandinger, U., and Pappalardo, G.: The unprecedented 2017–2018 stratospheric smoke event: decay phase and aerosol properties observed with the EARLINET, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 15183–15198, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-15183-2019, 2019.

Engelmann, R., Ansmann, A., Ohneiser, K., Griesche, H., Radenz, M., Hofer, J., Althausen, D., Dahlke, S., Maturilli, M., Veselovskii, I., Jimenez, C., Wiesen, R., Baars, H., Bühl, J., Gebauer, H., Haarig, M., Seifert, P., Wandinger, U., and Macke, A.: Wildfire smoke, Arctic haze, and aerosol effects on mixed-phase and cirrus clouds over the North Pole region during MOSAiC: an introduction, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 13397–13423, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-13397-2021, 2021.

Ohneiser, K., Ansmann, A., Baars, H., Seifert, P., Barja, B., Jimenez, C., Radenz, M., Teisseire, A., Floutsi, A., Haarig, M., Foth, A., Chudnovsky, A., Engelmann, R., Zamorano, F., Bühl, J., and Wandinger, U.: Smoke of extreme Australian bushfires observed in the stratosphere over Punta Arenas, Chile, in January 2020: optical thickness, lidar ratios, and depolarization ratios at 355 and 532 nm, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 8003–8015, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-8003-2020, 2020.

Ohneiser, K., Ansmann, A., Chudnovsky, A., Engelmann, R., Ritter, C., Veselovskii, I., Baars, H., Gebauer, H., Griesche, H., Radenz, M., Hofer, J., Althausen, D., Dahlke, S., and Maturilli, M.: The unexpected smoke layer in the High Arctic winter stratosphere during MOSAiC 2019–2020 , Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 15783–15808, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-15783-2021, 2021.

Ohneiser, K., Ansmann, A., Witthuhn, J., Deneke, H., Chudnovsky, A., and Walter, G.: Self-lofting of wildfire smoke in the troposphere and stratosphere caused by radiative heating: simulations vs space lidar observations, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss. [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2022-343, in review, 2022.

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AR by Fernando Chouza on behalf of the Authors (30 Jun 2022) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

The comparison of water vapor lidar measurements with co-located radiosondes and aerosol backscatter profiles indicates that laser-induced aerosol fluorescence in smoke layers injected into the stratosphere can introduce very large and chronic wet biases above 15 km, thus impacting the ability of these systems to accurately estimate long-term water vapor trends. The proposed correction method presented in this work is able to reduce this fluorescence-induced bias from 75 % to under 5 %.