Boundary Layer Profiles of Particle Turbulent Mass Fluxes at the Southern Great Plains Site
AJMAL RASHEEDA SATHEESH, Markus Petters, Nicholas Meskhidze,
NC State University Abstract Number: 400
Working Group: Instrumentation and Methods
AbstractIntegrated measurements of aerosol, radiation, cloud, and turbulent transport in the planetary boundary layer are often viewed as essential for understanding and modeling climate and air quality. This study presents the results of a field campaign conducted at the DOE Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Southern Great Plains site in Lamont, Oklahoma in 2020. We use the data collected from two coherent Doppler lidars operating in vertically pointing and full upper-hemispheric scanning modes, the University of Wisconsin High Spectral Resolution Lidar (UW-HSRL) for inferring aerosol vertical turbulent mass fluxes at different altitudes within the boundary layer, and aerodynamic particle sizer, which measures the aerodynamic particle size distribution between ~0.5 μm and 20.0 μm. We present a new algorithm for the identification of convective turbulent regions within the boundary layer and characterize both diurnal variabilities (detected at 105 m, the lowest acceptable range gate of the Doppler lidar) and vertical profiles (retrieved four times a day) of aerosol mass fluxes. Our data analysis shows that at the site, the aerosol mass fluxes were in a range of -0.5 and 0.5 µg m-2 s-1 in the surface layer during mid-day, with upward fluxes occurring more often than downward fluxes. In addition to estimates of the aerosol mass flux, aerosol depolarization ratio, and backscatter color ratio (i.e., the ratio of aerosol backscatter coefficients at 1064 and 532 nm) reported by the UW-HSRL are used for inferring aerosol-intensive properties such as shape and size.