Multiwavelength fluorescence lidar observations of smoke plumes

Abstract

Abstract. A five-channel fluorescence lidar was developed for the study of atmospheric aerosol. The fluorescence spectrum induced by 355 nm laser emission is analyzed in five spectral intervals using interference filters. Central wavelengths and the widths of these five interference filters are, respectively, as follows: 438 and 29, 472 and 32, 513 and 29, 560 and 40, and 614 and 54 nm. The relative calibration of these channels has been performed using a tungsten–halogen lamp with a color temperature of 2800 K. This new lidar system was operated during summer–autumn 2022, when strong forest fires occurred in the Moscow region and generated a series of smoke plumes analyzed in this study. Our results demonstrate that, for urban aerosol, the maximal fluorescence backscattering is observed in a 472 nm channel. For the smoke, the maximum is shifted toward longer wavelengths, and the fluorescence backscattering coefficients in 472, 513 and 560 nm channels have comparable values. Thus, from the analysis of the ratios of fluorescence backscattering in available channels, we show that it is possible to identify smoke layers. The particle classification based on single-channel fluorescence capacity (ratio of the fluorescence backscattering to the elastic one) has limitations at high relative humidity (RH). The fluorescence capacity indeed decreases when water uptake of particles enhances the elastic scattering. However, the spectral variation of fluorescence backscattering does not exhibit any dependence on RH and can be therefore applied to aerosol identification.