EARLINET dust observations vs. BSC-DREAM8b modeled profiles: 12-year-long systematic comparison at Potenza, Italy
In this paper, we report the first systematic comparison of 12-year modeled dust extinction profiles vs. Raman lidar measurements. We use the BSC-DREAM8b model, one of the most widely used dust regional models in the Mediterranean, and Potenza EARLINET lidar profiles for Saharan dust cases, the larg...
| Autores: | , , , , , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2014 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) |
| Repositorio: | UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/24520 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/2117/24520 https://dx.doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-8781-2014 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Aerosols -- Environmental aspects Meteorology Mineral dust Photometry RAMAN LIDAR MEASUREMENTS DESERT DUST SAHARAN DUST MICROPHYSICAL PROPERTIES MULTIWAVELENGTH LIDAR PARTICULATE MATTER AEROSOL EXTINCTION SIZE DISTRIBUTION DAILY MORTALITY SUN-PHOTOMETER Aerosols -- Aspectes ambientals Meteorologia Pols mineral Fotometria Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Enginyeria electrònica::Optoelectrònica Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Desenvolupament humà i sostenible::Degradació ambiental::Contaminació atmosfèrica |
| Sumario: | In this paper, we report the first systematic comparison of 12-year modeled dust extinction profiles vs. Raman lidar measurements. We use the BSC-DREAM8b model, one of the most widely used dust regional models in the Mediterranean, and Potenza EARLINET lidar profiles for Saharan dust cases, the largest one-site database of dust extinction profiles. A total of 310 dust cases were compared for the May 2000-July 2012 period. The model reconstructs the measured layers well: profiles are correlated within 5% of significance for 60% of the cases and the dust layer center of mass as measured by lidar and modeled by BSC-DREAM8b differ on average 0.3 +/- 1.0 km. Events with a dust optical depth lower than 0.1 account for 70% of uncorrelated profiles. Although there is good agreement in terms of profile shape and the order of magnitude of extinction values, the model overestimates the occurrence of dust layer top above 10 km. Comparison with extinction profiles measured by the Raman lidar shows that BSC-DREAM8b typically underestimates the dust extinction coefficient, in particular below 3 km. Lowest model-observation differences (below 17 %) correspond to a lidar ratio at 532 nm and Angstrom exponent at 355/532 nm of 60 +/- 13 and 0.1 +/- 0.6 sr, respectively. These are in agreement with values typically observed and modeled for pure desert dust. However, the highest differences (higher than 85 %) are typically related to greater ngstr m values (0.5 +/- 0.6), denoting smaller particles. All these aspects indicate that the level of agreement decreases with an increase in mixing/modification processes. |
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