Experimental synergy combining lidar measurements so as to optically characterize aerosols: applications to air quality and radiative forcing

The work carried out in this study is devoted to a better understanding of the evolution of aerosol physical, chemical and optical properties for urban pollution aerosols, dust and biomass burning particles. It mainly concerns the complex refractive index and the single-scattering albedo. Such a characterisation is indeed necessary so as to fulfil the requirements of scientific and societal air quality and global climate evolution questions. Our study is based on a synergy between different measurements platforms: ground-based or airborne measurements, together with active and passive remote sensing observations. Lidar in particular turns out to be an essential tool in order to assess horizontal and vertical variability of aerosol micro-physical and optical properties in the atmospheric boundary layer, but also in the residual layer, as well as in layers transported from the boundary layer to the free troposphere. The original methodology we developed highlights the importance of the geographical origin, the impact of aging and dynamical processes in the evolution of structural, optical and hygroscopic aerosol features. The related accurate determination of the properties in each aerosol layer is required for radiative fluxes and heating rates calculations in the atmospheric column. The radiative impact of both dust particles and biomass burning aerosols observed over the region of Niamey (Niger) was thus assessed during the dry season. These results reveal the need of a better characterisation of those significant aerosol properties for each layer in models. (author)