| Summary: | Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2013 The Arctic is a receptor of pollution transported from distant regions. Pollution reaches the Arctic both in gaseous and aerosol form, both of which have important climatic and ecological implications. This dissertation focuses on aerosols in the Arctic, specifically their transport to and their distribution in space and time within the arctic troposphere. The cornerstone of this thesis is the analysis of the retrievals made by the satellite-borne Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP), a two-wavelength polarization-sensitive lidar that measures the atmospheric attenuated backscatter return and provides high-resolution vertical profiles of aerosols and clouds. Chapter 2 uses CALIOP observations to follow the evolution of pollution aerosols transported from East Asia to the Arctic. The transport pathway is elucidated with backtrajectories and aerosol simulations with the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model. The polluted air mass experiences strong ascent within a cyclonic circulation near the source region. Once in the free troposphere, a block in the upper-air flow forces the circulation to take on a strongly southerly route. Since the air mass reaches the Arctic very rapidly (3-5 days), the aerosol scavenging is incomplete. Transport is nearly-isentropic except in its initial phase. Once in the Arctic, the aerosol plume slowly subsides due to radiative cooling. Using six years of CALIOP observations, Chapter 3 focuses on the horizontal, vertical and temporal distribution of Arctic aerosols. At low altitudes in the High Arctic (poleward of 70ºN), aerosol extinctions maximize in winter/early spring and reach their lowest values during summer. In the lower troposphere in the Low Arctic, in addition to the winter/early spring maximum, aerosol extinctions also display a secondary maximum in summer due to boreal forest fires. CALIOP measurements show that a major low-level Eurasian pollution transport pathway occurs on the western flank of the ...
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