Kazuma Aoki

Ground‐based network observation of Asian dust events of April 1998 in east Asia

We coordinated a ground-based network that has been in use since 1997 to observe Asian dust during springtime. Huge Asian dust events that occurred in the middle of April 1998 were captured by this network. In this paper we present the organization of the network; a description of the instruments, including the lidar, sky radiometer, and optical particle counter; and the results of the observation, and offer discussions regarding the transport mechanism of Asian dust in east Asia using an on-line tracer model. We discussed the time series of the surface concentration and the height distribution of the dust. A cutoff cyclone generated during the dust episode was responsible for trapping and sedimentation during the transportation of the Asian dust, particularly in the southern parts of China and Japan. Horizontal dust images derived from NOAA/AVHRR clearly revealed the structure of the vortex. The lidar network observation confirmed the general pattern of dust height distribution in this event; the height of the major dust layer was about 3 km over Japan but was higher (4 to 5 km) in Seoul and Hefei. A thin dust layer in the upper troposphere was also commonly observed in Hefei and Japan. Evidence of the coexistence of dust and cirrus was shown by the polarization lidar. The lidar network observation of Asian dust and satellite remote sensing provide key information for the study of the transport mechanism of Asian dust. Further extension of the lidar network toward the interior of the continent and the Pacific Rim would reveal the greater global mechanism of the transportation.

Lidar network observation of Asian dust (Kosa) in Japan

We have organized a network campaign for the observation of Asian dust in the spring of 1997 and 1998 in Japan. Through the communication with electric mail, we have successfully observed Kosa events by lidar, sunphotometer, and particle counter, etc. These data must be useful to analyze the transport mechanism of Asian dust and validate the satellite observations.

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 optimizati...