Airborne and lidar measurements of aerosol and cloud particles in the troposphere over Alert Canada in April 1986

Abstract

As a component of the Canadian Arctic Haze Study, held coincident with the second Arctic Gas and Aerosol Sampling Program (AGASP II), vertical profiles of aerosol size distribution (≥0.17 μm), light scattering parameters and cloud particle concentrations were obtained with an instrumented aircraft and ground-based lidar system during April 1986 at Alert. Northwest Territories. Average aerosol number concentrations range from about 200 cm⁻³ over the Arctic ice cap to about 100 cm⁻³ at 6 km. The aerosol size spectrum is virtually free of giant or coarse aerosol particles, and does not vary significantly with altitude. Most of the aerosol volume is concentrated in the 0.17–0.50 μm size range, and the aerosol number concentration is found to be a good surrogate for the SO₄ ⁼ concentration of the Arctic haze aerosol. Comparison of the aircraft and lidar data show that, when iced crystal scattering is excluded, the aerosol light scattering coefficient and the lidar backscattering coefficient are proportional to the Arctic haze aerosol concentration. Ratios of scattering to backscattering, scattering to aerosol number concentration, and backscattering to aerosol number concentration are 15.3 steradians, 1.1×10⁻¹³ m², and 4.8×10⁻¹⁵ m² sr⁻¹, respectively. Aerosol scattering coefficients calculated from the measured size distributions using Mie scattering agree well with measured values. The calculations indicate the aerosol absorption optical depth over 6 km to range between 0.011 and 0.018. The presence of small numbers of ice crystals (10–20 crystals 1⁻¹ measured) increased light scattering by over a factor of ten.