Arnoud Apituley

EARLINET coordinated lidar observations of Saharan dust events on continental scale

EARLINET, the European Aerosol Research Lidar Network, is the best tool to investigate the horizontal and vertical transport of aerosols over Europe. Within the network, particular attention is devoted to Saharan dust events monitoring. An alert system has been established in order to perform devoted measurements in case of intrusions of desert particles on European continent. Starting from data collected within EARLINET since May 2000, a first statistical analysis of the aerosol vertical distribution on European scale during Saharan dust outbreaks, has been performed. These results highlights the fundamental role that EARLINET can have for the study of impact of Saharan dust on European scale. The current 5-year EU project EARLINET-ASOS, started in March 2006, will enhance the operation of the network through the improvement of the instruments and of the temporal coverage, and of the data analysis procedures.

Overview of Research and Networking with Ground based Remote Sensing for Atmospheric Profiling at the Cabauw Experimental Site for Atmospheric Research (CESAR) - The Netherlands

CESAR, the Cabauw Experimental Site for Atmospheric Research, is the Dutch focal point for collaboration on climate monitoring and atmospheric research and is situated on the KNMI meteorological research site near Cabauw in the Netherlands. CESAR addresses challenging topics in atmospheric research, especially the questions that are related to the interaction between clouds, aerosols and radiation and questions dealing with land-atmosphere interaction. These topics are approached via process studies, model evaluations, climate monitoring, development of new experimental techniques and supporting activities for satellite missions. For each of these approaches, specific demands are put on the instrumentation, mode of operation and overall infrastructure. This paper gives an overview of CESAR that was recently augmented with a scanning drizzle radar (IDRA) and a multi-wavelength Raman lidar for aerosols, clouds and water vapor (CAELI).

The European Aerosol Research Lidar Network (EARLINET): An Overview

The European Aerosol Research LIdar NETwork (EARLINET) is the first aerosol lidar network on a continental scale with the main goal to provide a comprehensive, quantitative, and statistically significant database for the aerosol distribution over Europe. Next, we present EARLINET along with the main network activities.

Coordinated lidar observations of Saharan dust over Europe in the frame of EARLINET-ASOS project during CALIPSO overpasses: A strong dust case study analysis with modeling support

Coordinated lidar observations of Saharan dust over Europe are performed in the frame of the EARLINET-ASOS (2006-2011) project, which comprises 25 stations: 16 Raman lidar stations, including 8 multi-wavelength (3+2 station) Raman lidar stations, are used to retrieve the aerosol microphysical properties. Since the launch of CALIOP, the two-wavelength lidar on board the CALIPSO satellite (June 2006) our lidar network has been performing correlative aerosol measurements during CALIPSO overpasses over the individual stations. In our presentation, we report on the correlative measurements obtained during Saharan dust intrusions in the period from June 2006 to June 2008. We found that the number of dust events is generally greatest in late spring, summer and early autumn periods, mainly in southern and south-eastern Europe. A measurement example is presented that was analyzed to show the potential of a ground based lidar network to follow a dust event over a specific study area, in correlation with the CALIOP measurements. The dust transport over the studied area was simulated by the DREAM forecast model. Cross-section analyses of CALIOP over the study area were used to assess the model performance for describing and forecasting the vertical and horizontal distribution of the dust field over the Mediterranean. Our preliminary results can be used to reveal the importance of the synergy between the CALIOP measurement and the dust model, assisted by ground-based lidars, for clarifying the overall transport of dust over the European continent.