(UV, VIS) Laboratory evaluation of the lidar depolarization ratio of freshly emitted soot aggregates from pool fire in ambient air at exact backscattering angle

Highlights: • A laboratory experiment is performed to measure soot depolarization at 180.0°. • Fresh soot lidar depolarization ratios are provided in laboratory at 355, 532 nm. • The soot aggregates are freshly emitted from a pool fire in laboratory ambient air. • The soot LDR is numerically computed by applying the Superposition T-Matrix method. • The soot parameters agreeing with the laboratory LDR are hence discussed. In this paper, a controlled-laboratory experiment is carried out to evaluate the lidar depolarization ratio of freshly emitted soot aggregates in the exact backward scattering direction at 180.0°. The experiment is performed at two wavelengths simultaneously, namely 355 and 532 nm, often used in polarimetric lidar remote sensing. The soot aggregates are generated from a kerosene JET A-1 pool fire in laboratory ambient air and microscopic images confirm the fractal morphology of generated soot aggregates. Then, the Superposition T-Matrix (STM) method is applied to numerically simulate the soot aggregates backscattering properties for different soot particles refractive indices, monomer radii and monomer numbers. The range of these parameters which ensures the lowest discrepancy between the laboratory measurement and the STM-computations is discussed within experimental and numerical error bars. We find that the polydisperse monomers model gives an overall better evaluation of the ratio F₂₂(π)/F₁₁(π). In the polydisperse case, our numerical and laboratory experimental findings agree at both wavelengths for a refractive index m = 2.65 + i1.32 and monomer number N_m > 40 at a mean monomer radius of r_p = 30 nm (N_m > 160 at r_p = 27.5 nm). We believe this work may be useful for the light scattering and remote sensing communities and may also help future studies aimed at better understanding the impact of soot particle aggregates on the Earth's climate, which still needs to be precisely quantified.