The Carbon Aerosol / Particles Nucleation with a Lidar: Numerical Simulations and Field Studies

¹ Institute of Light and Matter, Lyon University, 10 rue Ada Byron, France,
² Currently with ETH Zürich, Laboratory of Physical Chemistry, W. Pauli Strasse 10, Zürich, Switzerland

^* Email: patrick.rairoux@univ-lyon1.fr

Published online: 7 June 2016

Abstract

In this contribution, we present the results of two recent papers [1,2] published in Optics Express, dedicated to the development of two new lidar methodologies. In [1], while the carbon aerosol (for example, soot particles) is recognized as a major uncertainty on climate and public health, we couple lidar remote sensing with Laser-Induced-Incandescence (LII) to allow retrieving the vertical profile of very low thermal radiation emitted by the carbon aerosol, in agreement with Planck’s law, in an urban atmosphere over several hundred meters altitude. In paper [2], awarded as June 2014 OSA Spotlight, we identify the optical requirements ensuring an elastic lidar to be sensitive to new particles formation events (NPF-events) in the atmosphere, while, in the literature, all the ingredients initiating nucleation are still being unrevealed [3]. Both papers proceed with the same methodology by identifying the optical requirements from numerical simulation (Planck and Kirchhoff’s laws in [1], Mie and T-matrix numerical codes in [2]), then presenting lidar field application case studies. We believe these new lidar methodologies may be useful for climate, geophysical, as well as fundamental purposes.