Remote sensing of aerosol optical properties and solar heating rate by the combination of sky radiometer and lidar measurements

The SKYLIDAR algorithm was developed to estimate the vertical profiles of aerosol optical properties from combining the measurements of the sky radiometer in SKYNET and the lidar in AD-Net. The derived parameters are the vertical profiles of extinction coefficient, single-scattering albedo, asymmetry factor, real and imaginary parts of the refractive index, and size distribution. The solar heating rate was estimated from these parameters. The algorithm was applied to the transported dust case, and the detailed vertical structures of the optical properties and the solar heating rate and their relationship were shown. For the validation of the SKYLIDAR algorithm, the vertical profile of the aerosol size distribution from the surface to the altitude of about 3 km was directly observed by the optical particle counter on board the glider. The comparison of the SKYLIDAR derived extinction coefficient with that estimated from OPC measurements showed that the SKYLIDAR result had a bias error due to the optimization of aerosol parameters to the optical thickness measured by the sky radiometer.