Sun photometer retrievals of saharan dust properties over barbados during saltrace

• Published in: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
• Main Authors: Toledano, Carlos, Torres, Benjamin, Velasco-Merino, Cristian, Althausen, Dietrich, Gross, Silke, Wiegner, Matthias, Weinzierl, Bernadett, Gasteiger, Josef, Ansmann, Albert, Gonzalez, Ramiro, Mateos, David, Farrel, David, Haarig, Moritz, Cachorro, Victoria E.
• Other Authors: Universidad de Valladolid Valladolid (UVa), Laboratoire d’Optique Atmosphérique - UMR 8518 (LOA), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université de Lille-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS), German Aerospace Center (DLR), Ludwig Maximilian University Munich = Ludwig Maximilians Universität München (LMU), Meteorologisches Institut München (MIM), Universität Wien = University of Vienna
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2019
• Subjects: [PHYS]Physics [physics]; Aerosol Robotic Network
• Online Access: https://hal.univ-lille.fr/hal-04478498; https://hal.univ-lille.fr/hal-04478498/document; https://hal.univ-lille.fr/hal-04478498/file/acp-19-14571-2019.pdf; https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-14571-2019

International audience The Saharan Aerosol Long-Range Transport and Aerosol–Cloud-Interaction Experiment (SALTRACE) was devoted to the investigation of Saharan dust properties over the Caribbean. The campaign took place in June–July 2013. A wide set of ground-based and airborne aerosol instrumentation was deployed at the island of Barbados for a comprehensive experiment. Several sun photometers performed measurements during this campaign: two AERONET (Aerosol Robotic Network) Cimel sun photometers and the Sun and Sky Automatic Radiometer (SSARA). The sun photometers were co-located with the ground-based multi-wavelength lidars BERTHA (Backscatter Extinction lidar Ratio Temperature Humidity profiling Apparatus) and POLIS (Portable Lidar System). Aerosol properties derived from direct sun and sky radiance observations are analyzed, and a comparison with the co-located lidar and in situ data is provided. The time series of aerosol optical depth (AOD) allows identifying successive dust events with short periods in between in which the marine background conditions were observed. The moderate aerosol optical depth in the range of 0.3 to 0.6 was found during the dust periods. The sun photometer infrared channel at the 1640 nm wavelength was used in the retrieval to investigate possible improvements to aerosol size retrievals, and it was expected to have a larger sensitivity to coarse particles. The comparison between column (aerosol optical depth) and surface (dust concentration) data demonstrates the connection between the Saharan Air Layer and the boundary layer in the Caribbean region, as is shown by the synchronized detection of the successive dust events in both datasets. However the differences of size distributions derived from sun photometer data and in situ observations reveal the difficulties in carrying out a column closure study.