ACP Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ACP 1680-7324 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acp-3-2161-2003 Lidar and in situ observations of continental and Saharan aerosol: closure analysis of particles optical and physical properties Gobbi G. P. 1 Barnaba F. 1 Van Dingenen R. 2 Putaud J. P. 2 Mircea M. 3 Facchini M. C. 3 Istituto di Scienze dell’Atmosfera e del Clima-CNR, Roma, Italy European Commission Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy Istituto di Scienze dell’Atmosfera e del Clima-CNR, Bologna, Italy 05 12 2003 3 6 2161 2172 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/3/2161/2003/acp-3-2161-2003.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/3/2161/2003/acp-3-2161-2003.pdf

Single wavelength polarization lidar observations collected at Mt.\ Cimone (44.2º N, 10.7º E, 1870 m a.s.l.) during the June 2000 MINATROC campaign are analyzed to derive tropospheric profiles of aerosol extinction, depolarization, surface area and volume. Lidar retrievals for the 2170-2245 m level are compared to the same variables as computed from in situ measurements of particles size distributions, performed at the mountain top Station (2165 m a.s.l.) by a differential mobility analyzer (DMA) and an optical particle counter (OPC). A sensitivity analysis of this closure experiment shows that mean relative differences between the backscatter coefficients obtained by the two techniques undergo a sharp decrease when hygroscopic growth to ambient humidity is considered for the DMA dataset, otherwise representative of dry aerosols. Minimization of differences between lidar and size distribution-derived backscatter coefficients allowed to find values of the "best" refractive index, specific to each measurement. These results show the refractive index to increase for air masses proceeding from Africa and Western Europe. Lidar depolarization was observed to minimize mainly in airmasses proceeding from Western Europe, thus indicating a spherical, i.e. liquid nature for such aerosols. Conversely, African, Mediterranean and East Europe aerosol showed a larger depolarizing fraction, mainly due to coexisting refractory and soluble fractions. The analysis shows average relative differences between lidar and in-situ observations of 5% for backscatter, 36% for extinction 41% for surface area and 37% for volume. These values are well within the expected combined uncertainties of the lidar and in situ retrievals. Average differences further decrease during the Saharan dust transport event, when a lidar signal inversion model considering non-spherical scatterers is employed. The quality of the closure obtained between particle counter and lidar-derived aerosol surface area and volume observations constitutes a validation of the technique adopted to retrieve such aerosol properties on the basis of single-wavelength lidar observations.