Optical Properties of Canadian Biomass Burning Particles Over Europe Observed with Calipso and Ground-Based Lidar Systems

¹ Department of Environmental Physics and Meteorology, Faculty of Physics, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 157 72 Zografou, Greece
² Laser Remote Sensing Unit, Physics Department, School of Applied Mathematics and Physical Sciences, National Technical University of Athens, 157 80 Zografou, Greece
³ Finnish Meteorological Institute, Kuopio, Finland

^* Email: papanikolaou.christiann@gmail.com

Published online: 7 July 2020

Abstract

A long-lasting biomass burning event affected Europe from 27 August to 3 September 2018. The biomass burning aerosol layers were observed with ground- and space-based lidars in heights ranged between 2-7 km (a.s.l.). The mean backscatter coefficient for the ground-based stations ranged between 0.29 and 1.51 Mm^-1sr^-1, while the CALIPSO retrieved values ranged between 0.43 and 1.83 Mm^-1sr^-1. Moreover, the mean Ångström exponent (AE_b) values, relevant to backscatter, ranged from 0.83 to 1.04 for the aforementioned lidar stations. At the same time, the mean AE_b values obtained from CALIPSO ranged between 0.17 and 1.89. The mean particle depolarization ratio ranged between 0.037 and 0.080.